Discussing the Impact of this Term

[fuzzyfelt]

Your 'location' indicator says London. What the hey dictionary are you using? My beloved Oxford shows that the only proper abbreviations is vs.. (The second period is the end of my sentence.)

I'm thinking your beloved Oxford must have let you down somehow, the couple I consulted don't have this. The latter has a rather fancy bullet point after every word listed in it, that you may have mistaken for a full stop. Using v. is the more accepted way (over vs) to abbreviate versus, used in the law courts.
It is in fact another difference between British English and American. British English considers words that omit middle letters rather than last letters as technically a contraction, not an abbreviation. I didn't realize that Americans do put full stops after these contractions, like Dr, Mr, St,...
My apologies for being petty and pernickety in an otherwise fascinating thread.

 

[Smurf]

This is another one of those 'funner' arguments isn't it? "vs. IS a word!" "No, It's not!"

 

[Lisa!]

I'm thinking your beloved Oxford must have let you down somehow, the couple I consulted don't have this. The latter has a rather fancy bullet point after every word listed in it, that you may have mistaken for a full stop. Using v. is the more accepted way (over vs) to abbreviate versus, used in the law courts.
It is in fact another difference between British English and American. British English considers words that omit middle letters rather than last letters as technically a contraction, not an abbreviation. I didn't realize that Americans do put full stops after these contractions, like Dr, Mr, St,...
My apologies for being petty and pernickety in an otherwise fascinating thread.

Man vs. man or British En vs. American En? Which name is suitable for this thread?

 

[Knavish]

Dictionary.com says v. and vs. are both proper abbreviations. (In law cases, however, I've noticed only v. is used--perhaps this is for the sake of consistency.)

 

[Smurf]

Dictionary.com says v. and vs. are both proper abbreviations. (In law cases, however, I've noticed only v. is used--perhaps this is for the sake of consistency.)

Yes but dictionary.com isn't an actual dictionary, it just links to a bunch of other online dictionaries for your ease-of-use. if you look under where it says 'vs.' you're notice the source is "The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition"

 

[Knavish]

And that's official enough for me..

Here's what Webster's says: "Spell out the word versus unless you're reporting game scores, when you would use vs.; when you're citing legal documents, use the abbreviation v."