Full Stop

This lesson is on the full stop the full stop is also called a period in American English and it appears as a single dot the bottom of the line.

After the last word as we see here it is used at the end of a sentence that is neither a question nor an estimation.

It’s also used in abbreviations titles initials and acronyms that’s also used in decimal numbers and with quoting with the full stop.

There are actually differences between the way UK and US English treat them full stop examples and abbreviations so common words such as days months address parts are often abbreviated and the abbreviation is only in the written form.

We still speak at the same so the appointment is for Monday afternoon.

Monday has been abbreviated to M0 NG and therefore has a dot after it.

My address is 23 North Street Plymouth and St being a common address parts has been abbreviated s t her birthday is on the twenty third of February and February is the month it’s been abbreviated to February.

We are open between 9 a.m. and 6 pm 4 a.m. stands for and anti-Americanism Iridium and PM stands for post Meridian and Iridium means noon or 12:00 so am is in the morning and PM is in the afternoon and you will notice that if the abbreviated word is the last word of the sentence one full stop is enough.

We do not need one for the abbreviation and then one for the end of the sentence.

One is plenty.

titles or a specific form of abbreviation so D.R.

dot M.R.

dot an M R S dot actually abbreviations of Dr mister and mistress although the MRSA it often here is Mrs as well and they’re so common in UK English.

The full stop is usually admitted and in the US English they’re still used in the UK we great Dr Brown we’ll see you now without the dots after the TR and the US version of Dr Brown will see you now has a dot after the abbreviation of Dr initials are used instead of the full name and are therefore abbreviations and as because they’re abbreviations they have a full stop to show this.

My name is Derek J Smith.

where the J stands for John.

And please note there is a space after the full stop.

And if there are several consecutive initials then you have several options George R.R. Martin wrote Game of Thrones where we have our DOT blank dot blank or we can bunch the initials up together right.

George R.R. Martin wrote Game of Thrones has an R dot R dot with no blank between the two R’s or we can compact it even further and just miss out the dots altogether right.

George R.R.Martin wrote Game of Thrones.

And in each case it doesn’t change the way we say it only changes the way we write it.

If you’re a tall uncertain about which version to use if you’re working for a company they may have a style guide you can use but no matter what version you use the most important thing is to be consistent and use the same version throughout the document.

Slightly different version of this is acronyms which used the first word of a phrase and are usually spoken as its own word.

and most acronyms are written uppercase without full stops between them but some acronyms are so common they’re written in lowercase and it’s almost like a new word NASA is sending a new probe to outer space he needs that report A.S.A.P.

or you’ll sometimes hear he needs that report ASAP where A.S.A.P.

stands for as soon as possible.

Please use this laser pointer.

A laser is an acronym it stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

Most people overlook this and just use laser as a normal word similar scuba I bought some new scuba gear wear scuba.

Actually stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus that most people just use scuba to describe diving gear.

He says he saw a UFO last night and UFO stands for unidentified flying object and this version we’ve chosen to show it with dots after the letters in upper case.

You can also just use UFO without the dots an ellipsis is three dots together like this and it’s used to indicate a continuation.

And usually the reader provides the rest themselves I told him it’s your round dot dot dot.

So what you provide is and he got up and got it we were on holiday we should do something which invites the person he’s talking to to fill the dots in and provide a suggestion for what we could do tomorrow is Saturday.

No work again.

The invitation is there to fill in the dots with a suggestion of what we can do tomorrow when we have time off in full stops.

Also he’s in decimal numbers and the full stop separates the whole number part from a decimal number part and in this particular case we don’t call it a full stop.

We say point and we’ll see in the examples that one point five plus three point two equals four point seven.

and someone could check this if they want to now.

Here we have a currency value which is slightly different.

Again we could say the grocery bill was thirty seven point two three dollars but that would sound a bit weird and people would normally say the grocery bill was thirty seven dollars 23 or an a pound version that will be a hundred and sixty seven pounds forty eight please and we were quoting what people have said there’s a slight difference between the way it’s handled in UK and US English in the UK version the full stop goes outside the quote and then the US version the full stop goes inside the quote so the UK would have the doctor said I have good news for you and the full stop is outside of the quote at the end of the sentence.

And the US version was have the doctors said I have good news for you would put the full stop inside the quote as they would say it belongs to the sentence that the doctor said a little quick one you’d have a look at.

I told my boss I need time off over Christmas so if you look at it the full stop is outside of the quote so it must be the UK version.

I’m sure you got that right.

So well done.