Scribal abbreviation by "contraction" and was mostly a Christian usage for sacred words, Nomina Sacra; non-Christian sigla usage usually limited the number of letters the abbreviation comprised and omitted no intermediate letter. One practice was rendering an overused, formulaic phrase only as a siglum: DM for "Dis Manibus" ("Dedicated to the Manes"); IHS from the first three letters of "ΙΗΣΟΥΣ"; and RIP for "requiescat in pace" ("Rest in Peace") because the long-form written usage of the abbreviated phrase, by itself, was rare. According to Trabe, these abbreviations are not really meant to lighten the burden of the scribe but rather to shroud
Latin syntax main action: Participles are much commoner in Latin than in English. Sometimes multiple participles can be used in a single sentence: The phrase "strīctō gladiō" (lit. 'with drawn sword') above is an example of a common idiom in which a noun and participle are put in the Ablative case to represent the circumstances of the main event. This idiom is referred to as an "ablative absolute" and is comparable to the Greek genitive absolute or the English nominative absolute. Other examples are: The present participle can also be used in an ablative absolute: The verb "sum" ('I am') has no