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# Lesson 3.6: Abbreviations

## Explanation

A combination of letters that represents a word is known as an abbreviation. Abbreviations are used to represent units of measurement, time, temperature, weight and more.

When an abbreviation is written in upper case, the appropriate capitals indicator must be used. A single capital indicator affects the following individual letter. The capital word indicator turns on capitals mode for the following letters sequence. It is used with a word or abbreviation written in all capital letters. The effect of the capital word indicator is terminated by a space, non-alphabetical symbol, or a capitals terminator.

Abbreviations may or may not be followed by a period. Contractions are used in abbreviations as long as their use follows UEB general rules. If a contraction consisting of only lower dots is adjacent to a period without any upper dots in the sequence, the contraction is not used in accordance with UEB rules.

In Example 1, the abbreviation for inches is written in print as the letters “in” followed by a period. The “in” contraction cannot be used since it would result in two lower signs together with no upper dot in the sequence.

### Example 1

$12\phantom{\rule{.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{in.}$
⠼⠁⠃⠀⠊⠝⠲

### Example 2

$12\phantom{\rule{.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{in}$
⠼⠁⠃⠀⠔

The "in" contraction is used in the abbreviation for inches in Example 3. Grade 1 mode was turned on by the numeric indicator and terminated by the hyphen.

### Example 3

$12\text{‐}\mathrm{in.}\phantom{\rule{.3em}{0ex}}\text{grid}$
⠼⠁⠃⠤⠔⠲⠀⠛⠗⠊⠙

Follow print for spacing abbreviations. If an abbreviation is formed with a single letter or would be misread as a short-form word, the grade 1 indicator must be used before the abbreviation.

### Example 4

$4\phantom{\rule{.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{g}$
⠼⠙⠀⠰⠛

### Example 5

$2\phantom{\rule{.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{c}\phantom{\rule{.3em}{0ex}}\text{flour}$
⠼⠃⠀⠰⠉⠀⠋⠇⠳⠗

### Example 6

$1\phantom{\rule{.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{ft.}=12\phantom{\rule{.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{in.}$
⠼⠁⠀⠋⠞⠲⠀⠐⠶⠀⠼⠁⠃⠀⠊⠝⠲

### Example 7

$3\mathrm{L}$
⠼⠉⠠⠇

### Example 8

$8\phantom{\rule{.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{oz.}$
⠼⠓⠀⠕⠵⠲

### Example 9

$1\phantom{\rule{.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{yd}>1\phantom{\rule{.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{ft}$
⠼⠁⠀⠽⠙⠀⠈⠜⠀⠼⠁⠀⠋⠞