Comment on Where did the abbreviation "w/" for "with" come from?
ValiantDust@feddit.de 8 months agoAbbreviate 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.
uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
In the Speedwriting shorthand system, developed in 1924 for use with typewriter, / Is used to denote omitted sylables, so ‘with’ becomes w/ and ‘without’ becomes w/o. Here is a pretty deep guide on the precepts of Speedwriting:
www.reddit.com/r/Classic_Speedwriting/…/list108/
squaresinger@feddit.de 8 months ago
But shouldn’t “w/o” then be written as “w/o/”?
uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Yeah. I have no evidence that this system invented those shortcuts, they may predate it by quite a bit
squaresinger@feddit.de 8 months ago
Yeah, it’s really hard to pinpoint such simple inventions.