A period is used to show that a word has been made shorter.

Make this short and sweet, he thought, get the hell out of here.

The clients appreciate being kept in the picture, even if their stay cannot be made shorter.

It would also, I imagine, make even shorter work of the operator.

And I don't like the thought of someone's story being made shorter by somebody who didn't have anything to do with writing it.

The words doctor, mister, and mistress are often made shorter when used with a name.

The resulting short growing season is made even shorter by the thin soil.

The idea behind these is that when only a small number of errors occurs, the recovery time can (and should) be made short.

As a result, Dennis was made shorter, with a smaller chin.

A malformation at birth had made one of his arms shorter than the other.