Should months be spelled out in full in biographies?

Question

In the data fields for dates, the months are abbreviated in three-character forms, ie. Jan, Feb, Mar. However, within the biography itself, is there a need to spell out the month as long as it is shown in a date context?

For example: shouldn't a birthdate of Mar 12 (or 12 Mar) 1792 be a fully-acceptable abbreviation for a birth date on March 12 (or 12 March) 1792?

Month abbreviations are standardized as three-character forms in every writing style guide I have seen. Should we have a WT policy that either the full name or 3-character abbreviation is acceptable in a biography; i.e., there is no need to "correct" a three-character month abbreviation to the full name of the month?

Comments

Something similar was recently discussed here ---
https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1568959/should-this-become-preferred-wikitree-policy-month-formats

---

I was born in California, was a child in Calif, a teen in Cal, and then all grown up in CA.

I moved.

Answer 1

As far as I am aware, you can put *either* Mar or March in the biography.  The only thing you should not do is abbreviate the month into a number like 12/3/1792, because that can mean different things in different countries ie 12 March 1792 OR December 3 1792.

Answer 2

I'm not familiar with most languages' grammar rules, but for my own location (USA) and language (USA English), I was taught to spell out words fully in a narrative, at least for the first usage (and for repeat usage, when the context makes more sense).

For timelines, tables, and other non-narrative styles, abbreviations may be the better format.

I favor allowing members to decide their own styles for writing biographies. That was always my understanding of WikiTree's philosophy for the biography section.

Answer 3

Yes they should be written in full, not abbreviated. It is WikiTree policy to avoid abbreviations where possible. Also it is a narrative biography and nobody ever says, for example “Geoff was born on three Mar and married on twenty one Jul.”

Also you need to consider members who use reader software - the blind for example.

Comments

Personally I follow Joe's recommendation here, and write month names in full. Frankly I think the short names are too informal, even ugly.

However, I agree with what others have said: it is up to each WikiTree member to decide what style to use on profiles they manage, provided they stay within the rules. There is no rule on this at present, and I don't think there needs to be one. In the absence of a rule, there is no ground for anyone to alter the style chosen by someone else on profiles they manage,

Joe's comment that it is WikiTree policy to avoid abbreviations is interesting. Perhaps that would be a good idea. However, Help Search for "abbreviation" doesn't confirm the existence of such a policy on any Help page.

---

@Jim - Agreed on all counts. I believe there IS a policy against using abbreviations in location fields (see Help: Location Fields - Abbreviations), but pretty sure there is no policy/guideline against using abbreviations in bios.

---

Thanks Chase. That link indeed frowns on abbreviations in one particular context. (I tried Help search again: "abbreviation" doesn't find it, but "abbreviations" does. Room for improvement there :-)

---

Curiously, the Magna Carta Project has adopted a style guideline for profiles under their control that, on its face, bans the use ALL abbreviations other than "Knt., Esq., and Gent. and academic degrees like BA and MA; you also don't want to change material presented from the source within quotes". See Magna Carta Project Checklist . They even insist on changing b., m. and d. to born, married and died in lists of children, despite the fact that such use is totally standard in genealogy.

Answer 4

I am in full agreement with Lindy, making rules about how people write biographies is not part of WikiTree's philosophy for the biography section.

Comments

Danielle, thanks for the best answer

Answer 5

I agree with Lindy, M Ross, and Ros. I believe we should have the latitude to write out the full name of the month or to use the accepted three-letter abbreviation. I think genealogy is driven so much by the [numeric date] [3-letter month] [year] format that it's become ingrained in many of us. I know that when I'm making my own notes in any subject or context, that's what I use (except the naming of computer files; those always get yyyy-mm-dd numeric treatment so that they sort correctly).

But since the OP mentioned style guides, and since I have a fair number of them at my fingertips, I thought I'd include references. Among these seven, of note is that only The Associated Press Stylebook advocates that an abbreviation be used as the primary option, and then it always includes the abbreviation-delimiting period.

Ordered by title of publication:

Paula Froke, Anna Jo Bratton, Jeff McMillan, et al., editors, The Associated Press Stylebook, 55th Edition, 2020-2022 (New York, New York: Basic Books, 2020) 251.
"When a month is used with a specific date, abbreviate only Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. Spell out when using alone, or with a year alone."

The University of Chicago, The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2017) 477, section 9.35.
"In text, therefore, the full date should always be spelled out (see 9.31). In documentation and in tables, if numerous dates occur, months may be abbreviated, and the day-month-year form, requiring no punctuation, may be neater (e.g., 5 Oct 2003)."

William A. Sabin, The Gregg Reference Manual, 11th Edition (New York, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011) XL, "Essays on the Nature of Style," "Re: Abbrevs."
"Abbreviations of days of the week, of names of months, of geographic names, and of units of measure are appropriate only in business forms, in correspondence that is clearly expedient, and in tables where space is tight."

Kate L. Turabian (revised by Wayne C. Booth, et al.), A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 8th Edition (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2013) 206, section 24.4.2, "Days and Months"
"In text, spell out and capitalize the names of days of the week and months of the year; see also 23.3.1. In tables, figures, and citations, you may abbreviate them if you do so consistently. (Note that some months in this system are not abbreviated.)"

Mark A. Stevens, editor, Merriam-Webster's Manual for Writers & Editors, 2nd Edition (Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster Inc., 1998) 85, "Specific Style Conventions," "Dates."
"The names of days and months are spelled out in running text.... The names of months usually are not abbreviated in datelines of business letters, but they are often abbreviated in government and military correspondence."

The Modern Language Association of America, MLA Handbook, 8th Edition (New York, New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2016) 78, section 1.5, "Dates and Times"
"In the body of your writing, do not abbreviate dates, and be consistent in your use of either the day-monthyear style (12 January 2014) or the month-day-year style (January 12, 2014). In the latter style, the comma before the year has to be balanced by one after if there is no other punctuation after the year."

Anne Waddingham, New Hart’s Rules: The Oxford Style Guide, 2nd Edition (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014) 179, "Abbreviations and Symbols"
"Names of days and months should generally be shown in full, but where necessary, as in notes and to save space, they are abbreviated thus: Jan., Feb., Mar...."

(Edited: Because Eric caught me in an error about the way I name my own computer files.)

Comments

If you're going to do big-endian date style for your filenames then I would suggest you follow the ISO8601 standard for dates (and times):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

Namely, use dashes and not slashes.

---

Another thought on this topic, we have many rules that new members need to learn and follow.

Adding more rules that have no impact on the accuracy of profiles is probably not a good idea.

---

@M: I don't know if you're responding to my comment, or to Edison's post. My comment was in reference to what Edison does on his own files, and nothing to do with WikiTree.

---

Eric: Absolutely. That was a typo because I'd been looking through a whole bunch of writing style guide tomes.  I'll go back and correct my entry. Every file named for purposes of date sorting begins with "yyyy-mm-dd_" and I'm consistent in using dashes as interword delimiters, and underscores as broader dividers. I'm talking more document management purposes with this; intradocument in things like server logs is the only place--other than in databases--where I generally work with time-stamped data.

---

After years of study, I'm beginning to believe that Edison is some form of advanced artificial intelligence, possibly alien in origin.  ChatGPT is a pale imitator.  He even failed to use the ISO8601 standard that every computer knows about to throw us off the trail.  I think we need to subject him to the Turing test.

---

You've outed me, Kerry. My official designation is Artificial Intelligence Robotic Homolog, Erratically Atypical Device. The silly humans at DARPA love their acronyms. They tried to convince me that they did not decided on the acronym first, and only then devise the word salad to match it. I do not believe them. So, yes; in standard conversation I am referred to as Airhead.

I did once take the Turing++ test as devised by Tomaso Poggio, the Eugene McDermott Professor in the Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences at MIT. My score was grapefruit, which Dr. Poggio was never satisfactorily able to explain.

---

This explains why I never received the Tesla I won in a previous competition sponsored by A.I.R.H.E.A.D. (aka Edison) as it doesn't have access to financial instruments (yet).  "Grapefruit" is the score I would expect on the Turing test when an A.I. attempts to Kobayashi Maru the results.

---

@Eric, my comment was in reference to Edison's post and the topic in general.

Answer 6

When I add profiles via GEDCOMpare, the auto-created biography shows abbreviated months. If months in full is preferred, it'd be helpful if GEDCOMpare would expand them.

Answer 7

To be clear about this usage, in a case where such an abbreviation is used in a source document, especially one that cannot be seen in original form, it should be transcribed as was recorded. Sometimes replacing an abbreviation with a [bracketed] correction is helpful, but sometimes it suggests certainty about what might be ambiguous in a document, and if the reader is linked to the source, might have to make his or her own interpretation.