For the benefit of the uninitiated: M-G is short for Mesterton-Gibbons,
which is a single, hyphenated word that begins with M and has 17
characters including the hyphen. In other words, my last name is
NOT Gibbons, it is Mesterton-Gibbons, and there are only two
logical ways to abbreviate it: If you consider a hyphenated word to be
primarily a compound word, then the logical abbreviation of
Mesterton-Gibbons is M-G, whereas if you consider a hyphenated word to be
primarily a long word, then the logical abbreviation of Mesterton-Gibbons
is Mesterton. Obviously, I prefer M-G to Mesterton (though I answer to either).