Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Abbr.

stan posted this at 10:14 AM, and 11 of you responded

When we abbreviate the names of the days of the week, we almost always use either two or three letters to do so: Su, Mo, Tu, We, Th, Fr, Sa; Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat. But only two days will get abbreviated with four letters: Tues, Thur. Doesn't that seem strange? Why not Sund, Mond, Wedn, Frid, and Satu?

Your thoughts?

11 Talked Back:

At February 28, 2006 at 1:02:00 PM CST, Blogger kristen said...

aside from wednesday, if you wrote 4 letters it is more than 1/2 the word. in which case, why bother abbreviating at all? the point of abbreviation is to make things much shorter than than they actually are, don't you think?

 

At February 28, 2006 at 1:09:00 PM CST, Blogger Coley said...

But we abbreviate Tuesday by writing Tues. and that is more than half the word. Still, no one questions it. It would seem to me that if you're talking consistency, you would have to either abbreviate all the days with four letters or abolish the four-letter abbreviation altogether.

 

At February 28, 2006 at 1:30:00 PM CST, Blogger stan said...

Somewhat but not entirely related, I've always secretly liked to see when people abbreviated Oregon as Oreg. There's a certain vintage associated with that, that harkens to the days before ZIP codes and two-letter state abbreviations.

 

At February 28, 2006 at 2:01:00 PM CST, Blogger Coley said...

In another somewhat related topic, we do the same thing with the months. We would never abbreviate January with Janu., yet we will use Sept. when abbreviating September. We don't do that with any other month. What makes September so spectacular that it deserves a four-letter abbreviation?

 

At February 28, 2006 at 2:32:00 PM CST, Blogger stan said...

If someone wrote Marc. or Apri., that'd be ridiculously funny.

 

At February 28, 2006 at 2:35:00 PM CST, Blogger Coley said...

I think I'll do that next month and just see what kind of reaction I get!

 

At February 28, 2006 at 5:41:00 PM CST, Blogger stan said...

Also: Abbreviate the year as '006.

 

At February 28, 2006 at 7:34:00 PM CST, Blogger kristen said...

seems like we like to end on consonants (moN, tueS). and the first consonant if there are 2 in a row (like wednesday or thursday or march)(although not with september) the prefix before day (mon, tues, thurs, fri). or uary (jan, febr). and why bother abbreviating june or july. who came up with this system anyway?!?!?!

ps. connecticut used to be Conn. and massachusetts Mass. i wonder what vermont was? or new hampshire?

 

At February 28, 2006 at 7:44:00 PM CST, Blogger Coley said...

Well, the consonant thing does make sense, except for I have seen June abbreviated as Jun., and August as Aug., Saturday as Sat. October as Oct. and December as Dec. Of course, as you mentioned it doesn't work for Sept. All of those have vowels after them.

Honestly, no system we use makes any sense at all to me regarding abbreviations!

 

At February 28, 2006 at 8:27:00 PM CST, Blogger stan said...

And obviously people have written Sep.

I think Vermont and New Hampshire used to be abbreviated as Vermo. and NewHam., respectively. Some of the founding fathers (aka foun. faths.) experimented with writing Massachu. and Connectic. but realized how dumb that was.

Especially when you consider that they sometimes wrote their s's like f's.

 

At March 1, 2006 at 9:48:00 PM CST, Blogger meagan said...

Or, why not just leave off the repetitive word: "day"? That would make the most sense to me.

What a conversation. These are things I think about too. :-)

 

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