There are two ways to shorten words, by using the symbol "ฯ" or using "."
It is more common to use the period "."
Most of the time when "ฯ" are used it is to shorten names. However, it can also be used for shorten other kind of words to but it is rare.
Regarding ถนน to ถฯ
It is never used that way. We shorten the word ถนน by using period, therefore ถนน is ถ.
The symbol "." is used to abbreviate all the word such as Street, Road, Alley, .... or political word such as Province, City, Village, ...
See more abbreviation here:
The difference between "ฯ" and "."
- for symbol "." it is like in English we write 1 or 2 or 3 letter from the word, such as
- กรุงเทพมหานคร to กทม.
- or ถนน to ถ.
- for symbol "ฯ" we must write first part of the word, such as
- กรุงเทพมหานคร to กรุงเทพฯ
- or ข้าพเจ้า to ข้าฯ
(However, if we put "ฯ" in the front and the back, then we can write just a few letter from the word, such as “พะนะท่าน” to “ฯพณฯ” , but these are very rarely used)