Learn English – How to abbreviate “Government”

abbreviationscontractionsformalitywriting-style

As far as I can tell there are eight ways to abbreviate or write the contracted form "government".

  1. gov or Gov
  2. gov. or Gov.
  3. gov't or Gov't
  4. govt. or Govt. (with the full stop/period)

Are any of these forms considered incorrect?

In formal writing I know it is never advisable to write contractions but I imagine there must be exceptions to the rule, consequently which is the preferred version? Is there a rule which explains how polysyllabic words ought to be contracted?

Edit April 5th 2014
I did a little research on Google Ngram Viewer, comparing Govt/govt with Gov/gov (Google Ngram appears to be unreliable with apostrophes and the period/full stop) and came up with these two.

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Best Answer

Almost all of the reference books I consulted note that gov (or gov.) can be an abbreviation either for government or for governor. In the United States at least, that dual meaning can lead to problems of ambiguity: many U.S. readers are likely to interpret the Gov in a headline such as "Gov Relaxes Rules" as being short for Governor [of the state where the newspaper is published]. For that reason, in the United States, including the final t is a sensible practice.

None of the various sources I consulted recommend the abbreviation gov't; instead, they divide their preference between govt. (with a period) and govt (without one).

Proponents of govt. (with a period) include The Random House College Dictionary (1984), which actually prefers Govt. but includes govt. as an alternative; the Facts on File Concise Dictionary of Acronyms and Initialisms (1988); Encarta World English Dictionary (1999), Webster's II New College Dictionary (1999), The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (2000), and The New Oxford American Dictionary (2001).

Proponents of govt (without a period) include Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (2003) and The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Tenth Edition (2002).

The modern legitimacy of both govt. and govt is well established by these sources. Nevertheless, my favorite bit of style advice on the subject is this from The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual (1994):

government Always lowercase, never abbreviate: the federal government, the state government, the U.S. government.

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