User:PonyToast/In Progress/MasonicAbbreviations

Masonic Abbreviations of technical terms or of official titles are very extensive use in Freemasonry They serve to abbreviate long or commonly-referenced titles in the fraternity

These abbreviations were rarely employed in the earlier Masonic publications. There are no abbreviations, for example, found in Anderson's Constitutions. These came into use particularly by French authors during the 19th century, and made use of the Therefore sign (∴) which remains commonly used today.

The first use of "∴" was August 12, 1774, by the Grand Orient of France, in an address to its subordinates. No authoritative explanation of the meaning of these dots has been given, but According to Mackey it is supposed to refer to the three lights around the altar, or perhaps more generally to the number 3, and to the triangle, all important symbols in the Masonic system.

The doubling of a letter is intended to express the plural of that word of which the single letter is the abbreviation. For example, in French, F∴ signifies "Frfere," or " Brother," and FF∴ " Frferes," or "Brothers." Similarly in English, L∴ is sometimes used to denote "Lodge", and LL∴ to denote "Lodges". Exceptions exist regularly; for example, Sovereign Grand Inspectors General is abbreviated as S∴G∴I∴G∴, and not S∴G∴II∴G∴.

Some examples: