Hi, English isn’t my mother tongue so I was asking myself that question since I first encounted a w/… Back then I was like: “What tf does ‘w slash’ stand for?” And when I found out I was like “How, why, and is it any intuitive?” But I never dared to ask that until now
When you type Dr., et al., you normally follow it with a proper noun. Why is the auto caps an issue?
For instance, if you want to text someone “I have an appointment with the Dr. at 11 on Tuesday”. Depending on the dr’s name it might be more to type than someone cares to, especially if it isn’t the most pertinent piece of information.
If you are gonna put Dr then odds are you’ll follow with @ and it’s a non-issue.
Because, as you probably just noticed, it’s sometimes part of a sentence, used without the name. Maybe I’m texting “Dr says it’s not a tumor, I’m pregnant” or something.
In addition, Dr (w/ or w/o .) sometimes means Drive, and USPS sorting machines prefer no dots, so that might also drive autotype to choose dotless, or at least offer it.
I don’t think writing “the Dr told me X” is normal because it’s in the middle of the sentence. Especially if it’s capitalized because that signifies that it’s a title, but you’re not using the title (unless we’re talking about German which we’re not).
You should just type out “the doctor said X.”
In formal communication I would type it out, but not, for instance, texting my kids with updates on the cat or their dad or whatevs