Are we to Live with Useless Periods Forever? — Slaw

Last Summer, the 7th edition of the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation (the “McGill Guide”) introduced this “General Rule” at p. E-3:

“In citations, omit periods when using an abbreviation or acronym, unless the Guide explains otherwise.”

The change entailed by this low key sentence has a very significant impact. Indeed, each and every example in the Guide is now free of the useless periods we have come to get used to. What a nice and overdue clean-up! …

Major legal citation guides in the UK (OSCOLA, s. 1.3.1) and Australia (AGLC, s. 1.6.1) clearly forbid the use of “full stops” in abbreviations and initials found in citations.