Dr.? No!…

Awhile ago I was asked whether or not Mr should be followed by a full stop. As you can see by the way I’ve just written it, I reckon not.

When it comes to abbreviations – eg Mr, Dr, ie etc – I adapt The Economist’s less is more rule on capital letters: use lower case unless it looks absurd. Indeed less is more is a pretty good principle to adopt for all punctuation.

Full stops, commas, dashes and so on are there to help rather than hinder understanding. Too many and you’re in danger of obstructing the flow of your communication, like barnacles on a boat.

So as a general rule I’d say that if a piece of punctuation doesn’t aid clarity or add character, leave it out. Dr.? No!