Why is "internationalization" shortened to "i18n"?

When people discuss about internationalization, they use the word "i18n" more often. For first time I didn't get what they开发者_StackOverflow中文版 are referring to by "i18n", then I came to know that it means "internationalization".

So wanted to know why internationalization = i18n.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization

18 stands for the number of letters between the first i and last n in internationalization, a usage coined at DEC in the 1970s or 80s

.

            1    1  1
   1---5----0----5--8
 i|nternationalizatio|n  == i18n

            1
   1---5----0
 l|ocalizatio|n          == l10n

See also http://www.w3.org/2001/12/Glossary#I18N.

18 is the number of letters between i and n in internationalization word.

This contraction is an English numerical contraction; contractions were the ellipsis of all but the first and last character is shown by the number of omitted characters

Because they didn't feel like writing the whole word.

i18n it's "i" followed by 18 characters ('nternationalizatio', count them) and a "n" and that's it.