I’ve seen .: used two times now, and I really wonder what is? The first time I saw it was in an extract from the Swedish dictionary SAOL in NE. They used it something like this so:
History.: since year x
More lately I saw it used in this comment by @nodsocket@lemmy.world like so:
What make bikes so expensive?
R.: The willing of people to buy them.
What is this? Were does it come from? Should I use it?
Edit: thanks for all the answers :). It turns out it was actually used for abbreviation in the dictionary, they wrote “hist.” instead of “historia”.
I’ve seen it as an easier to type version of the “therefore” symbol which is three dots in a triangle ∴
The symbol is used in math and logic. Try reading the word “therefore” in place of the symbol and see if it makes sense in context.
I always just thought ∴ meant you were being targeted by Predator.
Can confirm. It was used in the introductory formal logic course when I was at uni.