I have a background in amateur radio and the story was always told that O.K. stood for On Key, which is what telegraphists would send in Morse Code when they returned from a break. ie I am now On Key and ready to receive. When I went looking for confirmation of this story today I … Read more
“And that hashtag is wrong. It should always be v not vs. The ‘v’ never stood for versus, it stood for ‘vel’, meaning ‘or’. As in, ‘The gladiator or the lion is coming out of that arena alive.’” #WIvsENG https://twitter.com/ucsoldboyscc/status/1094362086216482817 “And ‘versus’ wasn’t even the way to say ‘against’, in that sense. That probably would’ve … Read more
In the attached youtube video, at 13:12, the lecturer gives a footnote on the difference between Such that and Subject to when expanding the initials mathematical abbreviation S.T. in certain mathematics problems. He claims that some people read this as Such that and some as Subject to where the former is a common mistake. In … Read more
I come up with the following three options to say thank you, but am not satisfied with any of them. Option 1: I would like to thank the members of my PhD committee, Prof. A, Prof. B, Prof. C, Prof. D and Dr. E for… Remark: Repetition of Prof. Option 2: I would like to … Read more
I edit a lot of articles that contain phrases such as “A first century AD inscription…” or “First century BC writer Herodotus…” I know that a compound adjective before a noun is usually hyphenated, so if the phrase were just “A first-century inscription” I would hyphenate accordingly, but “A first-century-AD inscription”, despite seeming grammatically correct, … Read more
I have a question. How do I make an initialism out of a word/phrase with a number? For an example: Should Rainbow 6 Siege be R6S because of initialism is an abbreviation made of initial letters but 6 is not a letter. Answer It’s perfectly acceptable to use a ‘numeronym‘ A numeronym is a word … Read more
I have several quotes of late-19th-century speech (by British men) which use the abbreviation “d-d” for a word. I’m not sure what it means, but from the context I assume this is profanity of some sort. Here’s an example: It was you brought me up this d-d hill. Any ideas? Answer The word here really … Read more
The average Arizona home uses 1,129 kWh of electricity a month or 13,548 kWh a year. kWh is an abbreviation for kilowatt hour. How do I express kilowatt hours? Maybe kWh(s)? It would look strange as kWhs. Also, The average retail price for residential electricity in Arizona is 11.90 cents per kWh. Do I need … Read more
Why is PhD read as /piːeɪtʃˈdiː/ (from Oxford Dictionary) and not, for example, like /fˈdiː/ , while diagraph ph is read as /f/ in Latin and Greek words? Why do we write Ph if not to represent the /f/ sound? There are questions about writing (like this) but not pronouncing. EDIT: Thanks for answers. To … Read more
A colleague recently pointed out that my usage of “resp.” in English is incorrect, and is in fact an artefact of my native language. In Czech, it abbreviates “respektive” and is used to express [Text claiming X, making assumption Y]. Unless it is the case that Y’ — then X’ instead. more compactly as [Text … Read more
