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Is it appropriate to abbreviate "congratulations" as "congrats" or "congrads", or are both acceptable? I have seen the latter used very often which is why I'm asking.

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  • Have you tried consulting a dictionary or done any other prior research? What makes you think that ‘congratulations’ should be shortened to ‘congrads’? Dec 2, 2013 at 17:47
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    There's no difference in pronunciation to speak of. In spelling, one uses T because it's already in congratulations. Dec 2, 2013 at 17:48
  • @John: Many Americans pronounce contratulations with /d͡ʒ/ (j) rather than /t͡ʃ/ (ch), which explains why it gets shortened to congrads rather than congrats. So I would say there is a difference in pronunciation. This probably shouldn't be reflected in the spelling, becawz we sertinly don't spell oll werds the way there pronounst. Dec 2, 2013 at 18:51
  • well, sum dew, eye spose. Dec 2, 2013 at 19:01

2 Answers 2

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Congrads is an incorrect spelling of this abbreviation. Put Congrads in any word processor and it will return an incorrect spelling. This is because "d" does not appear in Congratulations. Unfortunately, many people ignore this and still use Congrads. If you want to stay grammatically correct, use Congrats.

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    This has nothing to do with grammar, though. The spelling of a single sound is just that: spelling. Orthography. Grammatically, congrads, congrats, and koen gruhdz are all equally correct.
    – RegDwigнt
    Dec 3, 2013 at 0:06
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Congrads is found just often enough to irritate people. A web-search will find people complaining about it, though http://www.collinsdictionary.com/submission/9542/Congrads is someone trying to actually have that form considered for inclusion in Collins' dictionary. The fact that they suggest it is short for "congradulations" [sic] points to this actually being a joke, making fun of the few who do spell it congrads.

Now, everything starts somewhere, so it's quite possible that at some point in the future, congrads will eventually make its way into enough usage that it will be considered "a real word" by the majority.

In the meantime, since there are people complaining about it, and no similar group complaining about congrats (bar a few who just don't like abbreviations at all), it would be better to stick to the form congrats.

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