You might think it’s unnecessary to tackle full stops when giving tips on grammar. After all, most people are pretty confident using this most unambiguous of punctuation devices. According to The Times newspaper, the full stop is the best form of punctuation, bar none. It’s used like a knife to cut off a sentence at the right length, which is simply the point at which the thought is complete. But yet some areas of confusion remain.
Should full stops be used, as they traditionally were, in abbreviations such as Jan. Prof. and e.g.? The short answer is no. These days this unnecessary use of full stops (and other superfluous punctuation) has fallen out of favour in the interests of speed, a more contemporary appearance and cleaner typography. So nowadays words that traditionally would have featured fussy full stops generally do not. For example, U.K. becomes UK, 6 a.m. becomes 6 am, i.e. becomes ie and R.S.V.P. becomes RSVP.
