The Times and Economist style guides have now jettisoned points (eg and ie instead of e.g. and i.e.), but it looked so horrible, retrograde and barbaric that I went online and discovered this discussion. As with the appalling newspaper abolition of italics for books, works of art, etc., this "unilateral" change is symptomatic of the way IT has steamrollered many of the fundamental facilitators of advanced written communication out of existence. Points indicate an abbreviation and preclude semantic/graphic "interference" with "egg", as well as hinting at the Latin phrase which was once a subtle sign of a proper education. The Times these days, sad to say, is but a pale reflection of its former glory in journalistic and literary terms (it leapt onto the feminist/woke bandwagon decades ago), and its slickly written but ultimately dissatisfying style guide simply reflects the intellectual abyss at the heart of a vanished pillar of Western civilisation. Quo vadis? Back to mankind's early days of scratching crude signs on clay and sticks. Next thing to go will be capital letters, I fear.