Re: Abbrev for shorthand purposes

[kf]

On 8/5/22 1:31 AM, uzibalqa via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor 
wrote:
> Have been trying to use abbrev for shorthand purposes. I can go from text to 
> shorthand but not the other way round, because
> of the punctuation. Is there something I can do? Use of abbrev-mode also fails 
> in situations when different the same abbreviation
> could expand to more than one word.
>
> ("wayward" "wa/") ("westward" "W/")
> ("adjustment" "ajs-") ("armament" "am-")
> ("basement" "bs-") ("casement" "ks-")
> ("enactment" "nak-") ("enjoyment" "njy-")
> ("enlargement" "nlj-") ("entertainment" "Ntn-") ("measurement" "mz/-") ("movement" 
> "mv-")
> ("recommend" "rk-") ("require" "rqi") ("separate" "sp;")
> ("silk" "slk") ("struck" "Sk") ("subject" "sj")

Since no one else has yet to reply, I'll jump in with my non-expertise.

I see at least two problems: (1) the order of your terms is reversed, 
e.g., '("wayward" "wa/")' should be '("wa/" "wayward")' and (2) those 
term pairs should be one to a line, at least that's how emacs has always 
constructed my ~/.abbrevs file.

In addition, there are some other terms to each line.  Here's a small 
part of my ~/.abbrevs file:

....
(define-abbrev-table 'global-abbrev-table
  '(
    ("aann" "Just got an annoyance phone call." nil :count 14)
    ("abck" "back" nil :count 3)
    ("abiltiy" "ability" nil :count 2)
    ("abotu" "about" nil :count 41)
    ("abt" "about" nil :count 1)
    ("abuot" "about" nil :count 7)
 ....

The first line defines a table of abbrevs for all modes.  My ~/.abbrevs 
contains multiple tables, each for a different mode.

Note that there are 5 elements to each line.  Unfortunately, I 
understand only the first two, but that much has worked for me for a 
long time.

hth.