punctuation - What is the abbreviation for 'century'?


I remember being taught in history classes to abbreviate century by writing a large capital C followed by the ordinal number as in: C18th without the full-stop (period).


Recently I have noticed on ELU (it wasn't something I paid particular attention in the past) the lower-case c after a cardinal number and with a period, as in: 18c. and 18c without the period. Would either 18th c. or C18 be considered incorrect?


I checked online and The Oxford English Dictionary says century is abbreviated thus: c. but no indication if the number preceding should be ordinal or cardinal. On the first page of Google results I also found the Monash University recommended symbol, enter image description here but without th.


In The Chambers Dictionary 12th Edition, it lists both C and c as abbreviations for century:



C (preceding numeral, eg C21, twenty-first century)


c (following numeral, eg 21c, twenty-first century)



It also lists:



cen. abbrev: central; century


cent. abbrev: centigrade; central; centum (L), a hundred; century.



Why is the ordinal number e.g. 18th, 21st ignored? And finally, which is the most commonly accepted and recommended abbreviation?




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