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Hi, English isn't my mother tongue so I was asking myself that question since I first encounted a w/... Back then I was like: "What tf does 'w slash' stand for?" And when I found out I was like "How, why, and is it any intuitive?" But I never dared to ask that until now

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[-] ValiantDust@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago

Abbreviate keeping the first and some random later consonants (and sometimes consonants that aren't in the word at all) without using punctuation: Dr, Mr, Ms, Mrs

I think it's usually the first letter(s) and the last letter(s). In older English handwritings I've come across M.ʳ etc. So I think that's were those came from.

[-] uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 year ago

In the Speedwriting shorthand system, developed in 1924 for use with typewriter, / Is used to denote omitted sylables, so 'with' becomes w/ and 'without' becomes w/o. Here is a pretty deep guide on the precepts of Speedwriting:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Classic_Speedwriting/wiki/list108/

[-] squaresinger@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

But shouldn't "w/o" then be written as "w/o/"?

And "N/A" omits more than one sylable in "applicable".

I guess it's a grown system.

[-] uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah. I have no evidence that this system invented those shortcuts, they may predate it by quite a bit

[-] squaresinger@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, it's really hard to pinpoint such simple inventions.

this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
242 points (100.0% liked)

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