Template talk:s

Abbreviation

sg seems pretty non-standard to me. I've only ever seen the singular denoted as s or sing, but never sg. 81.104.165.184 21:32, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

The letter s in a dictionary context usually means substantive or stem. The syllable sing is for making music. The abbreviation sg is as common for singular as the other possibilities, and is the one used in most of my dictionaries, including Romanov’s Russian-English, Smirnitky’s Russian-English, Koushakdjian’ Armenian-English. The abbreviation sg benefits from being well understood and not ambiguous, unlike s and sing. Also, sg for singular fits very well with the most common abbreviation of plural, or pl. —Stephen 14:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

My research suggests st for stem, sb/sub/subst for substantive, but rarely s alone. I also don't see the relevance of the musical reference either, since the context of the abbreviation should make it clear that it doesn't refer to singing. My Collins all use s, and the OED uses sing. Is there any real reason why the abbreviations couldn't be terminated with a "."? 81.104.165.184 13:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

To have this as well as m, f, etc terminated with a ".", please see Wiktionary:Customizing your monobook#Gender abbreviation periods. — Hippietrail 00:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)