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
All in all, the / is just one style of abbreviation used in English. It’s not only used for “with”, but also a few other words (w/o = without, N/A = not applicable).
In German we abbreviate using a dot (e.g. “m.” = “mit” = "with). That’s not more or less intuitive, it’s just what you are used to.
What’s kinda special with English is that there are multiple abbreviation styles. Off the top of my head I can think of six styles:
- Abbreviate random parts of words using a slash: “N/A”, “w/”, “w/o”
- Abbreviate keeping only the first letter of a word using a dot: “e.g.”
- 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
- Abbreviate using acronyms and no punctuation: BBC
- Abbreviate using acronyms and dots: B.C.
- Abbreviate by substituting parts of the word with a single letter: Xmas (Christmas), Xing (Crossing)
I’m used to Dr., Mr., Mrs. all needing the dot.
I’d also add the medical ones which all use x, and most use the first letter of the word, but not all, so it’s kinda point 3, kinda not:
- Prescription: rx
- Symptoms: sx
- Diagnosis: dx
- History: hx
I learned similar shorthand from an accountant, who wrote transfer (money transfer between accounts) as tx.
Also, it used to be obligatory to put the dot on Mr., Mrs., Dr., etc. I’m old, I remember how it was taught. And we called those dots “periods”. I haven’t been in school in decades, but I’ve been noticing those dots disappearing.
Both are possible: Dr and Dr.
Never heard of the x version. Very interresting.
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Might be. I’m neither Brit nor American, so I learned both.
Prescription: rx
I work in radio electronics and RX is receive. TX is transmit.
In programmer lingo we’ll sometimes shorten words with the number of letters in between:
i18n (internationalization) and L10n (localization). I just learned of g11n (globalization), too.
Wait until you learn about k8s
No thanks!
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Just start using it for everything and confuse everyone… I mean E6E
This one is terrible IMO. A11y is ironically very inaccessible unless you’re aware of this unintuitive system.
Now that I know it though, it’s a good way to distinguish between similar common abbreviations. For instance I know you don’t mean “Actually” even though I’m not sure what you do mean by A11y.
Accessibility I think :-)
Oh, really!? That’s a good one for me to learn! (Spouse is a quad who uses a lot of computer A11y aids)
Also k8s for Kubernetes.
Wait. That is why it’s called i18n!? Never knew that.
True, forgot about that one. I really hat this style of abbreviation^^
T2e, f4t a3t t2t o1e. I r4y h2e t2s s3e o0f a10n^^
F3d i0t f1r y1u.
Aaarg!!
you h2e it?
d4s (dingus)
r13y (reproducibility)
Dr., Mrs., Ms. etc. are traditionally abbreviated with periods/dots but it does raise issues typing on one’s phone because autocorrect thinks it’s the end of a sentence, so sans dots is becoming more common. And there’s other examples which have never had dots, like nvm and af
X is a little special, it stands for Cross and therefore also for Christ. When illiterate medieval people had to sign documents they were told to make the sign of the Cross, since they were usually swearing
Edit: anyone else always pronounce PED XING as pedexing instead of pedestrian crossing?
Using the period with titles is standard in the US and leaving out the period is standard in the UK.
As a non-Christian, I never made that Xmas connection. It sounds cool, but I was never sure why anyone started calling that (and evidently never curious enough to go looking for an answer or even really ask, I just kinda took it as one of those things that is how it is because people are going to people).
Oddly enough, people who didn’t know that part of the history got angry “they took Christ out of Christmas!” So then people who liked the holiday but not the religion used it to do exactly that. As you say, people people.
As a non-Christian, I never made that Xmas connection.
Well, as a Christian, I wouldn’t feel bad about it because the poster is not correct. The X in Xmas does not stand for a cross, it comes from the Greek spelling of Christ which is Χριστός. The chi-rho symbol (☧) is an imposition of the first two letters (Χ and ρ) and is still commonly used to refer to Christ in some denominations.
As a bonus: if you’ve ever wondered (or not wondered) why some Christian symbolism uses a fish, ἸΧΘΥΣ (or ICTHYS) is an acronym for Ἰησοῦς Χρῑστός Θεοῦ Υἱός Σωτήρ, “which translates into English as ‘Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior’.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthys) This has been used since the first century.
if you’ve ever wondered (or not wondered) why some Christian symbolism uses a fish, ἸΧΘΥΣ (or ICTHYS) is an acronym for Ἰησοῦς Χρῑστός Θεοῦ Υἱός Σωτήρ
And that presumably is drawn as a fish in some language?
“ἰχθύς” is the ancient greek word for “fish” https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ΙΧΘΥΣ
I don’t see that word used in their comment?
click on the link pls
Both Dr and Dr. are possible.
Edit: anyone else always pronounce PED XING as pedexing instead of pedestrian crossing?
Yes, that’s how I pronounce it.
When you type Dr., et al., you normally follow it with a proper noun. Why is the auto caps an issue?
For instance, if you want to text someone “I have an appointment with the Dr. at 11 on Tuesday”. Depending on the dr’s name it might be more to type than someone cares to, especially if it isn’t the most pertinent piece of information.
If you are gonna put Dr then odds are you’ll follow with @ and it’s a non-issue.
Because, as you probably just noticed, it’s sometimes part of a sentence, used without the name. Maybe I’m texting “Dr says it’s not a tumor, I’m pregnant” or something.
In addition, Dr (w/ or w/o .) sometimes means Drive, and USPS sorting machines prefer no dots, so that might also drive autotype to choose dotless, or at least offer it.
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In formal communication I would type it out, but not, for instance, texting my kids with updates on the cat or their dad or whatevs
Don’t forget re: which means regarding or in reference to, not reply.
… I think it’s actually a Latin word, “re,”, meaning, “the matter (subject)” not an abbreviation at all.
yeah this is a real pet peeve of mine.
In German many people, web mailers and also sometimes even email software use “AW:” (short for AntWort) instead of “Re:” and then some of them don’t even recognize the existence of a previous “AW:” or “Re:” giving you such wondrous email subjects as: “AW: Re: AW: Re: AW: AW: Re: AW: Re: really important subject” 🤦
Oh, that totally works with a single language too: “Re: Re: Re:…” or “AW: AW: AW:…” seen both of that often enough.
yes indeed. i keep being confused how email can still suck so much sometimes when it had decades to mature.
Massive amounts of federation ;)
It’s really hard to get thousands of software development companies, hundreds of thousands of hosters and billions of users to unitedly go for a new thing.
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“AW: Re: AW: Re: AW: AW: Re: AW: Re:
Ah, yes, you get forwards from my boomer-aged father, too!
The Foreword? Or is that answer? Forward in English would be the author’s message at the beginning of a book.
don’t forget using contractions on single words, like cont’d, pop’n (sometimes written popn)
don’t forget x in medical settings. eg, dx is diagnose, tx is treatment, etc
Abbreviate using the first and then any choice of following letter that differentiates it from the other possibilities in a specific group: AL, AR, AK, AZ… MA, ME, MD, MI, MN, MS, MO, MT… WA, WI, WV, WY!
Well tbf those are post codes designed by the postal service to represent states. I wouldn’t really count it as a naturally developed abbreviation like the ones above, it’s no different from .fr, .es, .co.uk, etc.
The abbreviations for states used before the two-letter ones, however, are much weirder! E.g. Penna. for Pennsylvania
Tbf iirc the USPS had to make sure they didn’t conflict with other previously existing abbreviations. Although as someone living in LA, CA* they didn’t quite succeed
(Not Louisiana, Canada but the other one)
Bonus points for one of your examples being e.g. which stands for exempli gratia, translating to “for example”
Which is kinda weird in it self, because when abbreviating you not only change the words but even the language.
Hardly anyone would ever write “exempli gratia” in a normal text, and “f.e.” would also not be understandible for most people.
So in regular use, “e.g.” is practically the abbreviation for “for example”
True, but we have lots of examples of that in English, to the point where I don’t think it’s that weird. e.g., i.e., b.c., a.d., etc., and so on. What’s even weirder to me is that we have sayings in English that use words that are otherwise not used anymore. “To and fro”, “lo and behold”, “eke out”, “inclement weather” (it’s hard to even find a definition of inclement because it’s only used to describe weather), “spick and span”, “days of yore”
In German, we too have words that only survived in specific versions. What’s really weird is that we have words like that, that died out, but a specific form survived, and then the word gets re-imported from another language with a slightly different meaning.
Take for example “Rasse” (race) and “Rassismus” (racism).
In German before WW1 the word “Rasse” was used to differentiate between the locals and the neighbouring “others”. So the usage was like “the German race”, “the French race”, “the English race”, “the Jewish race” and so on. After WW2 that word just about disappeared from the German language because it was used so heavily by the Nazis and also because it had no real meaning. They also used terms like “the Human race”. So race could be anything from “speaks another language but looks exactly like me” to “species”. It was almost exclusively (except for “the Human race”) used to dehumanize the others.
But the term “Rassismus” survived and it’s meaning is about the same as xenophobia in English. Thus, if a white person from France hates everyone from Belgium, that’s racism.
In the USA on the other hand, the word “race” was used to differentiate between the white population (which came from all over Europe) and the “others”, which in this case were Africans, Native Americans, Asians and South Americans. Like with the term “Rasse”, “race” was also used to dehumanize the others. And accordingly, “racism” only applies when someone hates people of another race by the USA definition. But unlike in German, the USA was never ruled by Nazis, and thus the word “race” was never discontinued.
And now the English word “race” is getting re-imported to the German language, but with the US meaning, because there is no German meaning left.
So right now in the German language, “Rasse” means Black, White, Asian, …, while “Rassismus” can totally be against someone who is of the same “Rasse” but speaks another language or is from another country.
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.
Except Dr., Mr., ie., etc. use a period.
Both versions exist: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_(title)#Abbreviation
What about acronyms and initialization?
Those are initialisms, not acronyms.
Wikipedia at least sees initialisms as a type of acronyms. But even if it didn’t, your comment would still be unhelpful pedantry.
K.
(That’s an initialism for “OK”.)
And OK is initialism for okay.
It’s actually an initialism for “Oll Korrect”. I’m not kidding.
Is that why people sometimes say “O.K.”? I always assumed it was just a grammar mistake. The more you know lol
Yeah, “O.K.” came first, “okay” was later. It has a weird history. According to the American Heritage Dictionary:
During the 1830s there was a humoristic fashion in Boston newspapers to reduce a phrase to initials and supply an explanation in parentheses. Sometimes the abbreviations were misspelled to add to the humor. OK was used in March 1839 as an abbreviation for all correct, the joke being that neither the O nor the K was correct. Originally spelled with periods, this term outlived most similar abbreviations owing to its use in President Martin Van Buren’s 1840 campaign for reelection. Because he was born in Kinderhook, New York, Van Buren was nicknamed Old Kinderhook, and the abbreviation proved eminently suitable for political slogans.
I’m not the person you were replying to, but the source linked on the wiki for that statement actually refers to them as being distinct.
Initialisms are acronyms
Similes are metaphors, too
m. is not a German abbreviation for mit, afaik. I never once read that. Where did you get that from?
As an Austrian, I have often seen it on food packaging with limited space. Something like “Rotkraut m. Apfel”.
That is interesting. Thanks.
As others said, with as w/ was around as part of secretarial shorthand, which got taught to most people keeping corporate documentation and it stuck.
There are a lot of abbreviations like that in the English language that came from abbreviations in written form due to the media in was written in, whether it was newspapers, telegraph, handwritten shorthand, or computer based. It may not make sense because English isn’t a language designed to make sense; it isn’t even designed.
It may not make sense because English isn’t a language designed to make sense; it isn’t even designed.
To be fair, no living language is.
French is heavily managed by the Académie, I guess it depends how you interpret “designed”. English is a much freer language that morphs and absorbs terms from many languages.
I wonder how much of the managed-language sticks vs the emergent-language. I recall years ago there was news of how the academie made up their own word for email.
Thank you for your answer mate :D
Pretty sure it started w/your mom
My mom ‘s so poor we need to save letters :’)
w/your mom
If we’re abbreviating things: w/ur mom
Some various answers here; but for me, it came from w/o as a shorthand for ‘without’, then I started sometimes writing w/ for ‘with’ and wondering if that’s okay!
I’m not a linguist, but to me, langauge is fluid, in that it’s fine to use it any way you want, so long as the people involved can interpret it as intended.
Which means when you write a note in shorthand for yourself, so long as you can come back to it and decipher it at whatever point you need it then it’s fine.
If someone were to happen to come across it then there is a concern that they may interpret it wrong. As a silly example: If “I will fuck your mom” was your code for “I will pick up milk and eggs from the grocery store”, you can see how people (which could include you later) can interpret your message incorrectly, and you should pick a better shorthand in that case.
When communicating with others you’ll have contexts of what kind of things are relevant, like PoS may mean different things if you are talking to a store manager vs. your buddy, you have to be sure your listener or reader gets the correct version.
I wish I could upvote this more! Language is a living tool. Constant change in humanity requires communication tools that keep up.
Can’t agree more :D
My mother was a legal secretary, so she taught me shorthand when I was a kid. W/o was included in those teachings.
In spanish we use the same abbreviation: c/ for “with” ans s/ for “without”
Til :D
Thanks for that reply :D
My guess is these became common with the telegraph. Since messages were expensive and the sender paid by the letter, abbreviations where commonly used to keep messages short.
Oh, another interesting take. Tysm for that reply :D
Just wait until you encounter morse code abbreviations, some of which are still used in some industries. Like the wonderful X abbreviations, such as:
Wx - weather
Mx - maintainence
Tx/Rx - transmit/receive
Edit: I’m starting to think every industry totally did their own thing with morse abbreviations
Hx, Rx, Tx are history, prescription and treatment in medical jargon
Dx too
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Sx for symptoms also
sx makes me think of something else than symptoms
That sounds like a Sx of something
Cx - customer is one I run into daily.
Tx/Rx - transmit/receive
I work in radio electronics. I use these, too.
Lol those are wild
It comes from the letter “w” as in, “with”
I know this isn’t an answer on the topic of the history of abbreviations, but I found this page to have a useful list of abbreviations with the foreign speaker in mind.
they forgot kys :(
Kiss your stepsister?
keep yourself safe :)
Kiss your sather
FIY For your information
i.g. For example
😆
I use c̅ for with and s̅ for without, these may make more sense for you depending on your native tongue. They are medical shorthand.
Con and sans?
I assume it is latin (which I don’t know) but essentially yes. I think of them as con and sin.
Cum and sine in Latin, same meaning as con y sin
Thanks! A lot of latin learning in this thread!
Oh, nice. Thanks for that input ^^
No idea, but it might be connected with shorthand, which was a common and sophisticated note-taking technique that allowed people, mostly secretaries in business, to write as fast as talking.
Almost certainly it originated from pen and paper shorthand. The internet has a lot of history in regard to it potentially being due to T9 slang, but I remember it being shown to me before cellphones were in wide use.
If that annoys you, never get into advanced maths. There’s arbitrary symbols that make no sense like 3 dots in a triangle means therefore. An upside down capital A means for all.
But that’s a different use case. It’s math, not everyday written language.
Tbf, it’s not just math. The .•. is used pretty often in philosophy (in writing out logical arguments), and I’ve seen it other places occasionally. Not saying you’re wrong, just adding unnecessary context lol
Mathematicians didn’t want to write a conclusion paragraph to their proofs to say that that result proves what they wanted to show, so they just put “QED” at the end which is some Latin/Greek phrase to the effect.
Then they got too lazy to write that because they do proofs all the time, so they just put a box ∎ that means “so, basically yeah. there you have it.”
Q.E.D. is “quod erat demonstrandum”, meaning “thus, it has been demonstrated”.
Yeah, I’ve got “Advanced Mathematics” as a university lecture and some students made a glossary to understand what tf the prof is writing
Back when business was done entirely by paper, you’d have catalogues, books full of tables of things you could order with their prices. You have limited space for printing item names and those abbreviations were used there (e.g. in the 1920s).
Oh, I see. Thanks a lot for that answer :D
People have needed quick notations for as long as language has been written. While I’m not going digging for links because fuck that shit for a casual comment, it remains true in every form of writing around the world that I’ve read about (obviously, I can’t read them all, and the few I can I don’t read well, but that’s why linguists get paid to do it for a living).
There are numerous symbols that represent entire words in writing. $, &, @,®,©,™, and that’s just the few my on screen keyboard makes easy.
The / is very commonly used to denote that the rest of a word has been “slashed” off of the previous section. It is intuitive to a degree in that it has been used for that in multiple places independently. Using a single symbol for that is very common.
It happening with with is just the most common example that most people will run into. Moreover, it’s typically applied in situations where the expected readers will be aware of that shorthand.
As an example, one of the nursing homes I worked at used a letter slash system for a lot of the common tasks we’d perform on our big whiteboard. You’d have room numbers and letters (for two bed rooms), with a grid. If you gave the patient their shower, you’d note s/. Bed bath would be b/. Meals were denoted with the first letter and slash except breakfast, which got m/ for morning (because b was already taken).
Now, we used lower case for tasks and upper case for initials as well, so that you could come up between rooms, make the note, and sign it in just seconds. When you’re taking care of 30+ patients per hall, those seconds are valuable.
The w/ notation has been used for hundreds of years that I know of. I saw copies of colonial era logs that used it, and they went back to the 1600s iirc.
But, let’s give another example to help you get that it’s really no different from another word that happens to mean the same thing as with. If I say something is big, you’ve probably seen the word before, right? Picking up English as a second language usually means starting with smaller adjectives.
But, there’s other words that mean the same thing, or the same thing at a different scale large means the same as big. Huge means the same basic thing, but is typically used to mean “very big”. So, huge is a kind of shorthand too, in use. But until you encounter it the first time, it’s no more intuitive than big.
Then, the glory of English means we get all kinds of surplus words. Gargantuan, brobdingnagian, massive, they all mean that something is very big.
So, just think of w/ as a very small word that happens to share a single letter with the word with, and you simply hadn’t run across it. Nobody has the entirety of English in their heads, even vocabulary geeks. We all eventually run across something new to us, though the longer you read in English, the less often it occurs.
Now, why the slash? As opposed to some other symbol like -, :, or whatever. Think about writing with a stylus, brush, or quill pen. Dots and slashes are the easiest things to write, and are thus the fastest.
If you’re on a dock, scribbling down the load that’s coming in, you need that speed. When you’re keeping log books of any kind, you need to minimize hand strain, so fewer symbols means less strain.
W/ is the OMG or lol of more important things. It’s just another way of saving space and/or time
The ampersand (&) was so commonly used that for a while it was taught as a letter. British schoolkids in the mid- to late-19th century would include it as the 27th letter on writing work and needlework samplers, usually after “z”.
There’s some discussion that the Alphabet Song ends with “w, x, y & z” specifically to include it.
If you gave the patient their shower, you’d note s/.
Totally gave 17b s/ /s
Woah, tysm for that detailed answer :D
No worries :)
University shortcut. When you have to take notes on paper so damn fast, you develop techniques. Those techniques get shared around. That’s how it was explained to me.
Oh, OK. Thanks for your answer ^^
