Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 April 3

= April 3 =

period after first name?
Is there a method of writing the names with a period after the first name followed by an abbreviated middle name and then the last name? For example, Can you write Mohandas. K. Gandhi or Harry. S. Truman? --Sundardas (talk) 01:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No. I'm not aware of any situation where a period is used after the first name, except if the first name is abbreviated as in J. K. Rowling or J. R. R. Tolkien. Xenon54 (talk) 01:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Periods are used (in this context) to indicate abbreviation. "Mohandas" and "Harry" are not abbreviated, so there's no case for using a period.  "K" is short for Karamchand, so a period is required.  The "S" in Truman's name is not (despite appearances) short for anything: S was his full middle name, so no period is used in this case.  -- JackofOz (talk) 01:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * S is his middle name but it does get a period. See Harry S. Truman. Rmhermen (talk) 02:41, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I stand corrected; although it doesn't seem to be universal - even the official White House biography changed only last year. --  JackofOz (talk) 04:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If an e-mail address has the form forename.a.surname@hostname.tld, there is a period after the first name.
 * -- Wavelength (talk) 03:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.familytreeforum.com/wiki/index.php/Common_Forename_Abbreviations. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I think a full stop can sometimes be used if the first name is abbreviated, e.g. Thos. (Thomas), Jas. (James). This type of abbreviation has a rather old-fashioned look, though. Just noticed that Wavelength's link has some of these .AndrewWTaylor (talk) 04:39, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

abbreviation "a.i."
I've come across the abbreviation "a.i." a few times after a person's name in business correspondence. I think it may mean that the person is only temporarily holding a position, but if so, what do the letters actually stand for? Thanks, --Richardrj talkemail 08:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I would suspect if it means temporary then it means Ad Interim. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes that must be it, thanks very much. --Richardrj talkemail 09:10, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Wallpaper idiom
In Dutch we have a phrase: "Iemand achter het behang plakken" (pasting someone behind the wallpaper) to describe what many would like to do to someone who is particularly apt at driving you up the wall. Is there a similar phrase using the word wallpaper in the English language? - Mgm|(talk) 10:19, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Not that I'm aware of. --Richardrj talkemail 10:27, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks! In that case my upcoming article needs some additional explanation. If anyone else does know about it after all, don't hesitate to speak up. - Mgm|(talk) 10:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You could somehow work in Oscar Wilde's reputed mot, in reference to a particularly ghastly wallpaper, "One of us will have to go". --  JackofOz (talk) 11:38, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm... in the version I heard, his last words were, "Either that wallpaper goes, or I go." —Angr 14:03, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Abbreviations for first names
Following up on the thread "period after first name?" above, I'm curious about the practice of using abbreviations for first names, such as Thos. (Thomas), Jas. (James), Wm. (William) or Geo. (George): --Thomprod (talk) 12:56, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * When did this practice first appear?
 * What is its advantage over spelling out the full name, other than saving a few characters?
 * When did it go out of style and why?
 * It was in widespread use in the 18th century - I think some signers of the US Declaration of Independence used such abbreviations. I couldn't tell you the advantages or why it went out of style, but I can tell you that most people today view such abbreviations as "old-timey" (for lack of a better word). However, some abbreviations such as "Ben" or "Theo" have become nicknames. The only current use of a forename abbreviation that I can think of is Jos. A. Bank Clothiers. Xenon54 (talk) 13:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Chas as in Chas and Dave? or Chas Chandler?--TammyMoet (talk) 14:29, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * There's a number of them fossilized in company names—Wm. K. Walthers, Inc., is another example. Deor (talk) 14:03, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * For researching current use of language, there is Google News Search, by which I found these pages with Thos. used. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:31, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.star-telegram.com/metro_news/story/1296114.html (Thos. in paragraph 3)
 * http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20090330/OBITUARIES/903299955/-1/NEWS05?Title=Mollie-Faigin-98 (Thos, in paragraph 8)
 * http://www.richmondregister.com/lifestylescommunity/local_story_083070736.html (Thos. in paragraph 3)
 * http://blog.mlive.com/pagesofourpast/2009/03/this_week_in_local_history_exc_3.html (Thos. in paragraph 1)
 * -- Wavelength (talk) 14:31, 3 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Don't phonebooks still use such abbrevs? – In my youth I naïvely supposed that Jas was for Jason (my grandfather's name). —Tamfang (talk) 03:10, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
 * daddy, what's a phonebook? —Tamfang (talk) 04:03, 14 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I believe one factor driving the use of such abbreviations really was saving a few characters. They're used extensively in encyclopedias and biographical dictionaries of the era, since replacing every occurrence of "William" with "Wm." could save you quite a bit of space overall. --19:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)


 * That may be close to the theory I've long assumed: that it saved space on shop signboards, thus requiring less wood, less paint, less time by the signwriter, and a saving in money all around. --  JackofOz (talk) 23:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Division or Department
I am having trouble with above mentioned words. Please have a look at following sentence: Which one is correct?--114.130.8.52 (talk) 15:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Foreign exchange division falls under export and import department and
 * Foreign exchange department falls under export and import division
 * There are no cut-and-dried definitions for these terms, but on the whole I would say that a division is normally bigger than a department – indeed, a division will contain several departments. However, many companies will not use either of these terms at all, particularly "department" which is I think falling into disuse as an organizational term.  Anyway, to sort out your sentence you'd really need to know which is the bigger operation, foreign exchange or import/export.  However, it doesn't really read very well to me either way.  Partly because, as I say, "department" is a slightly old-fashioned term these days, but also because the two functions don't really sit well together in the first place and you would not necessarily expect them to fall under the same organizational umbrella.  Indeed, I'm not sure whether most companies would have a foreign exchange division or department at all.  Foreign exchange would normally come under finance or accounting. --Richardrj talkemail 16:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Huh. At American universities, at least, a division is smaller than a department; a department may consist of several divisions. But the OP's question is clearly about a business, not a university. —Angr 20:40, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You can do a Google search for organizational chart. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the first response that in corporate usage a division is normally bigger than a department. If the sentence is talking about a typical way that companies are organized, the second version is better than the first. However, if you're intending to talk about a specific company, you should use whatever terms the people in that company use. Incidentally, an expression like "export and import department" normally requires a "the" before it. --Anonymous, 21:46 UTC, April 3, 2009.

In some other contexts, such as public/civil service, a department is the entire organisation, and is bigger than any division, section, branch or anything else contained within it. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:56, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * In, say, the British Department for Transport, it's split into directorates-general, which are split into directorates, which are split into divisions. So within the DfT, you have the Directorate-General on International Networks, consisting of the Directorate on Aviation and the Directorate on Shipping. Aviation is then split into Airports Division, Expansion Division etc. ╟─ Treasury Tag ► contribs ─╢ 07:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)