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After reading this post, I was struck by the omission of the period (full stop) at the end of the acronym given.

A.V.C

I've never seen this before here in the States. Is it permissible here? In England? Elsewhere? Is it common anywhere?

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3 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

I have never seen such a usage. I think it was a misapprehension made by the OP of that particular question.

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From the British side of the pond, word. :-) – user1579 Apr 12 '11 at 14:22
1  
If anything, I think there is an increasing tendency to omit all periods in acronyms. I'm old enough to remember S.W.A.L.K. on the back of envelopes (the periods were invariably included). I bet if there were to be a modern equivalent, they'd invariably be omitted. – FumbleFingers Apr 12 '11 at 15:14
@FumbleFingers: It might also be that the dots (I'd not call them periods?) get dropped as an acronym ages and becomes more common. Your example seems to belie this; I agree that, apart from that process, the use of dots in capital acronyms has generally decreased over the past decades. The same applies to other languages such as Dutch. – Cerberus Apr 12 '11 at 17:35
up vote 3 down vote

If you are writing in a style which uses periods after each letter in an acronym, you can skip the last period in the acronym if the acronym is the last word in the sentence, in which case the sentence-final period, exclamation point, or question mark will replace it.

I have never heard of A.V.C.

I can't believe you work for I.B.M!

Is this the way all astronauts are treated by N.A.S.A?

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up vote 0 down vote

I think this has been discussed a few times before on this forum, but basically the full stops seem to be more common in US usage. In modern British usage, they tend to be omitted. I don't see what's so special about "AVC" for this not to apply.

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The question was not about the general use of periods/full stops in acronyms but rather the inclusion of all but the final period/full stop in an acronym. – snumpy Apr 12 '11 at 17:54
Ah OK sorry I misread. In that case I think the technical term is "typo"... – Neil Coffey Apr 12 '11 at 20:52

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