Acronyms

[Anaris]

*points to the link from vongenf up above* seems you ignored that extensive list.

Those are not, by and large, the same kind of abbreviations.

Acronyms aren't just shortened words that you can still pronounce (like "Fel Rec" for "Felicis Recordationis"), they're a set of initials that, when put together, are pronounced as if they were a word. Like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, aka SARS. (Pronounced like "Stars" without the "t".) Or, as I mentioned before, the " Uniting (and) Strengthening America (by) Providing Appropriate Tools Required (to) Intercept (and) Obstruct Terrorism Act", which becomes the "USA PATRIOT Act", most commonly referred to simply as the Patriot Act.

These simply cannot be compared to the items on the list von Genf posted. From my skimming of it, those were pretty much exclusively written abbreviations—one whole section was abbreviations found on gravestones (or, well, catacomb inscriptions, but close enough), for Cthulhu's sake; those aren't shortened for ease of referring to something, they're shortened because the stonecarver just doesn't have that much space to work with!

And though there are a very few sets of initials in the list that could be read as acronyms if one chose (such as "SID" for "Spiritus In Deo", or "DOM" for "Deo Optimo Maximo"), I doubt very strongly that they ever were spoken aloud in such a manner as a matter of course.

[fodder]

well... i did post "AD"'s wiki link, then saw his link and deleted the post

[vonGenf]

Yes, but nobody would try to pronounce those as words. Which makes them period-appropriate abbreviations, not much-more-modern acronyms.

I have never seen such a narrow definition of acronym; but generally, you are right.

If i wanted to be picky, however, I would quote this, also from wikipedia:

"The early Christians in Rome, most of whom were Greek rather than Latin speakers, used the image of a fish as a symbol for Jesus in part because of an acronym—fish in Greek is ΙΧΘΥΣ (ichthys), which was said to stand for Ἰησοῦς Χριστός Θεοῦ Υἱός Σωτήρ (Iesous CHristos THeou (h) Uios Soter: Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior."

[Scarlett]

This is tough because our characters are nominally all writing to each other, but they are doing so as if they had unlimited internet paper.

The 'tons of abbreviations' from the Catholic Encyclopedia existed because written real estate was expensive and so were good writers, particularly for manuscripts (which is what that is for - re-scripting texts). This is not really comparable to '!@#$ I have to say to the Duke of Norfolk.'

Additionally, many characters write conversationally. Even characters prone to writing 'proper' letters (which I encourage) inevitably have to send a one- or two-line letter about moving out at sunset or this or that game mechanic that doesn't lend itself to paragraphs of blather.

I don't think you would ever see a medieval noble put to paper a phrase like "'scuse me'" or a spoken shorthand, because if they wrote a letter, even to friends and family, it was formal. In conversation, particularly more rural or backwater nobles might use verbal colloquialisms, but even that might get looked down on at court. How any of this translates to BM is pretty tough to say and obviously impossible to enforce.

My preference is to begin all letters with formal address and end them with some kind of formal closure, e.g. 'I remain your obedient servant' or something to that effect. Even if they're not necessary (which is most of the time in BM) having the formal wrapping forces me to treat what I'm sending as a letter and less as a 'message.' Remember that our characters are sealing every single letter they write and putting your family seal on a letter is going to make you a little more conscious of what you've written in it.

[Bedwyr]

Remember that our characters are sealing every single letter they write and putting your family seal on a letter is going to make you a little more conscious of what you've written in it.

Hm.  I like this.  If we ever get family crests working, I would like the "send" button replaced with a picture of your family crest to reinforce it.

[Fleugs]

What I get from my palaeography classes, which is basically transcribing of old texts to something that the average person can read, is that there is plenty of abbreviations used by medieval writers. That and they still had to invent a more unified way of writing.