abbreviations. As frequently as engineers find themselves using the words engineer and engineering, they do not appear to have agreed on any single standard or official shorthand for the words. Among the abbreviations I have seen used are egr., eng., engr., eng'r., and engng. – none of which is especially mellifluous or, in isolation, unambiguous. Abbreviations are not meant to be pronounced as such, however, and as long as the context is clear there should be little need to worry about them being misunderstood. Even so, the arrangement of the letters in these abbreviations is not especially typographically graceful, and situations can arise where confusion might result, as in a university setting when a course number is designated Eng. 101. Is this Engineering 101 or English 101 or Energy 101? Engineers dislike ambiguity, and so the imprecision of an abbreviation for our own profession is annoying, to say the least.

It is apparently this aversion to ambiguity that has led engineers to introduce less-than-logical abbreviations for themselves. And it may well have been the potential confusion over what “eng.” designates (engine, engineer, engineering, English, engrave, etc.) that led to the introduction of the unconventional, unpronounceable, and ungraceful abbreviation egr. for engineer, and sometimes its natural extension egrg. or egrng. for engineering. Although many common abbreviations have multiple meanings, the context can be expected to make clear which one is intended. Unfortunately, the words engine, engineer, and engineering often occur in the very same context.