Abbreviation of "Street"


I know that Street is abbreviated as St. But does the t in St represent the first t or the last t in Street?


Drive is abbreviated as Dr, which means it could be the first t, but Road is abbreviated as Rd, which means it could be the last t, if we were following the same pattern.


(Please note that this question is not opinion based. By looking at the patterns of other common abbreviations we can conjecture as to, or even deduce, the origin of St.)



Answer



The "t" in "st" should be taken as the first "t" of "street."


Consider that abbreviations of common nouns (especially in the domain of roadways) beginning with a consonant-vowel pair usually take the first consonant and the last consonant (or strategic consonants which appear throughout), as evinced by:



  • road --> rd

  • lane --> ln

  • point --> pt

  • cove --> cv

  • view --> vw

  • highway --> hwy

  • parkway --> pkwy

  • boulevard --> blvd

  • doctor --> dr


Abbreviations of common nouns beginning with a consonant-consonant pair usually take the first few consonants:



  • drive --> dr

  • place --> pl

  • square --> sq

  • trail --> trl


"Street"/"st" is of the latter category. As such, it seems like we should regard the "t" of the abbreviation "st" as the second consonant in "street", that is, the first occurrence of "t" in it. This agrees, I think, with the intuitions of most people.


EDIT: Note that the above reasoning also explains why "st" is also used as an abbreviation of "saint." Because "saint" starts consonant-vowel, the abbreviation uses the first and last consonant, "st".


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