Why is “page” abbreviated “p” while “pages” is “pp”? Of somewhat less interest to me, I also wonder whether “p” or “p.” is the correct notation?
p. v. pp.
October 5th, 2009 by juttin
4 Responses to “p. v. pp.”
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Teaching English to Preschoolers with iPhones
We (i.e. the creators of Pain in The English) developed a series of iPhone apps to teach preschool kids how to recognize letters and words. (My wife developed the characters and I did the coding.) Our own 4-year old daughter has been enjoying them. They are now available on Apple's App Store. You can search for "bitskis" on your iPhone, or visit the official website at bitskis.com.
If you have kids and own an iPhone, please check it out. It's $2.
Quoting Wikipedia :
In Latin, and continuing to the derivative forms in European languages as well as English, single-letter abbreviations had the plural being a doubling of the letter for note-taking. Most of these deal with writing and publishing.
The rest of the wp article discusses the use of the final period as well (cf “History” section).
I remember learning this in high school, when I was taking Latin. The textbook had a picture of a coin that bore the face of some monarch. The coin identified this person as the reigning emperor of “BRITTANNIA,” if I remember the spelling correctly. According to the book, the double T to pluralize the word “Britannia” — which in this case referred to the British Isles — in the same way that “pp” means pages. Don’t know why my brain held onto this all these years, but it did.
I have always used p. for one page and pp. for two or more pages.
And the plural for the barrels of a carburetor is bbl.