No Stupid Questions

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

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.

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?

don't forget using contractions on single words, like cont'd, pop'n (sometimes written pop^n^)

Don’t forget re: which means regarding or in reference to, not reply.

don't forget x in medical settings. eg, dx is diagnose, tx is treatment, etc

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.

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.

My mother was a legal secretary, so she taught me shorthand when I was a kid. W/o was included in those teachings.

RANT: While I know that language changes all the time, I find it very unfortunate that this little fellow o/ and possibly his slightly more formal friend o7 have become synonymous with “nazi salute”. First off, it’s the wrong arm! And second off, what do you have against “man waving” and “man saluting”?

Have they really? Never seen o7 used that way, with o/ it's more understandable, but since one can easily just use \o (or use an actual unicode swastika) I just don't see it getting that controversial. Seems even less known than the triple parentheses thing, which is something that most people who don't spend their lives on the internet never heard about.

First time hearing o7 as 'nazi salute', I only know it as a 'military/captain's salute' out of Eve Online, Elite and some milsim games

Poor o/ and o7

I am never stopping using these.

It must be very confusing for someone who uses this newer definition of o/ to visit the Elite:Dangerous forums.

EVE online players have done the o7 salute for decades. And while I'll gladly admit that every single longtime EVE player is at least something of an asshole (it's a requirement to really enjoy the game) I doubt the majority are cryptofascists.

RANT: While I know that language changes all the time, I find it very unfortunate that this little fellow o/ and possibly his slightly more formal friend o7 have become synonymous with “nazi heil”. First off, it’s the wrong arm! And second off, what do you have against “man waving” and “man saluting”.

Never heard that but thanks for reporting o7

o/ is a wave, o7 is a salute of respect

Hx, Rx, Tx are history, prescription and treatment in medical jargon

Cx - customer is one I run into daily.

I still use the three dots for therefore sometimes without really thinking about it. I never pursued work in maths or physics (I set and run industrial machines) but for some reason that one always stuck with me from school.