It was compiled in 1879 by
Walter P. Phillips, who explained that he was in large part putting down the collective experience of generations of telegraph operators. In the introduction to the 1907 edition of his book, "The Phillips Code: A Thoroughly Tested Method of Shorthand Arranged for Telegraphic Purposes. And Contemplating the Rapid Transmission of Press Reports; Also Intended to be Used as an Easily Acquired Method for General Newspaper and Court Reporting," Phillips wrote, "Research suggests that at one time, commercial telegraphs and railroads had numerical codes that contained at least 100 groupings. Few survived beyond the turn of the century. The compilation in this book represents the consensus of many whose duties brought them into close contact with this subject." His code defined hundreds of abbreviations and initialisms for commonly used words that news authors and copy desk staff would commonly use. There were subcodes for commodities and stocks called the Market Code, a Baseball Supplement, and single-letter codes for Option Months. The last official edition was published in 1925, but there was also a Market supplement last published in 1909 that was separate. The code consists of a dictionary of common words or phrases and their associated abbreviations. Extremely common terms are represented by a single letter (C: See; Y: Year); those less frequently used gain successively longer abbreviations (Ab: About; Abb: Abbreviate; Abty: Ability; Acmpd: Accompanied). Later, The Evans Basic English Code expanded the 1,760 abbreviations in the Phillips Code to 3,848 abbreviations. == Examples of use ==