Dictionary of Grammar [antikvár]

A a see indefinite article. a-, an- is a prefix derived from Greek, meaning 'not', 'without'. Older words using it include agnostic, anarchy, anonymous. Several modem words have been formed using it, as in apolitical, asexual, atypical, abbreviations are shortened forms of words usually used as a space-saving technique and becoming increasingly common in modem usage. They cause problems with regard to punctuation. The common question asked is whether the letters of an abbreviation should be separated by full stops. In modem usage the tendency is to omit full stops from abbreviations. This is most tme of abbreviations involving initial capital letters, as in TUC, BBC, EEC and USA. In such cases full stops should definitely not be used if one or some of the initial letters do not belong to a full word. Thus television is abbreviated to TV and educationally subnormal to ESN. There are usually no full stops in abbreviations involving the first and last letters of a word (contractions) Dr, Mr, Rd, St, but this is a matter of taste. Abbreviations involving the first few letters of a word, as in 'Prof (Professor) are the most likely to have full