[austechwriter] Re: Query: Honorifics and other dotted abbreves / sentences

  • From: "Brian Clarke" <brianclarke01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 09:22:05 +1000

Hi Steve,
I thought that the use of periods to succeed abbreviations and to intersperse 
acronyms was a thing of the past - like about 15 years ago?
Brian.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Steve Hudson 
  To: Austechwriters 
  Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 10:56 PM
  Subject: [austechwriter] Query: Honorifics and other dotted abbreves / 
sentences

  I am putting the finishing touches on a sentence finder for Word. I need a
  list of _common_ abbreviations that are commonly 'dotted' with an
  immediately suceeding period.

  I imagine the .mil kiddies have a whole bunch of honorifics like Lt. Gen.
  and the like, so I figured the best bet was to ask those people with access
  to docs with them to suggest some 3 character or larger common dotted
  abbreves.

  I am planning on having specialist 'dictionaries' of these terms
  'hard-coded' in as I can't see the list being THAT extensive to warrant the
  use of an external config file, unlike Trivial Words. The collection of
  words is exposed to the API user to modify if required.

  In writing this, I came up with my 'rules of thumb' for sentence breaks.
  Perhaps some of our cunning linguists can suggest modifications.

  'Rule 1: Sentence must end with a .?! or elipses, or any combination thereof
  'Rule 2: Sentence must end more than 1 char into doc
  'Rule 3: Sentence must end with a lower case character
  'Rule 4: Must be succeeded by a space, double quote or a ctrl char
  'Rule 5: Last word of sentence cannot be two chars long with first char
  capped
  '        to take care of common abbreviations, Mr. Dr. Lt. etc
  'Rule 6: Last word of sentence cannot be a dotted abbrev

  Steve Hudson

  Word Heretic, Sydney, Australia
  Tricky stuff with Word or words for you.
  Email:      steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Products:   http://www.geocities.com/word_heretic/products.html
  Spellbooks: 728 pages of dump left and dropping...

  **************************************************
  To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to 
austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

  To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to 
austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject field.

  To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 
"unsubscribe" in the Subject field.

  To search the austechwriter archives, go to 
www.freelist.org/archives/austechwriter

  To contact the list administrator, send a message to 
austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  **************************************************
**************************************************
To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to 
austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to 
austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject field.

To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 
"unsubscribe" in the Subject field.

To search the austechwriter archives, go to 
www.freelist.org/archives/austechwriter

To contact the list administrator, send a message to 
austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
**************************************************

Other related posts: