Re: [groff] 04/04: tmac: Move macro diagnostics away from `quotes'.

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Ted,

> For instance, should one abbreviate "Street" as "St" or "St."?
> Either is compatible: "S[tree]t" or "St[reet]."

Street is `St.', Saint is `St'.  I base this on quite a bit of Googling.
:-)

A word that starts consonant, vowel is often contracted to the first
and last consonant, with perhaps some of those in between.

    MisteR MistRresS
    DoctoR
    LimiTeD
    RoaD LaNe BouLeVarD
    SainT
    FeeT FooT YarD

Those starting consonant, consonant use the first consonants and thus
have a full stop to show they're truncated.

    STreet SQuare PLace

> In practice one sees both.

One sees `all intensive purposes' too.  :-)
And it took many pre-Internet years before I realised the `commonal
garden' phrase I often heard as a child was `common or garden'.
I struggled for a while trying to find `commonal' in paper references.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.
https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy