Not sure if this belongs here or somewhere else. Since punctuation is a part of it, I'll start here. Here's a sentence that my question refers to: It was on the northwest corner of UTA Blvd. and College St. Is this correct or should I spell out boulevard and street?
I would write out the full words, but I even do that when writing addresses on envelopes because I hate these abbreviations. Like how Hertfordshire is shortened to Herts. It's a lovely word, don't disrespect it with lazy abbreviations!
Yes, it's best not to use abbreviations. Abbreviations can pull the reader out of the story. The only exception I can think of is if one of your character's is literally reading an address: Susan looked at the envelope, and reading "124 Marlene St.", knew that she was headed in the right direction.
If you could show me an example in a professionally published piece, I could accept that. I've never seen it in a fictional story.
In my Little, Brown Handbook, Fourth Edition, Section 45f (45 is Abbreviations), it says: Among the examples: However, The Scott Foresman Handbook for Writers (1988, pg 518) does say: and So it appears it is acceptable to abbreviate street and boulevard jn your example. Nevertheless, I flipped through several mystery novels by different authors (lots of addresses there), and most of the time, addresses were fully spelled out.
