When did abbreviations for "something" and "somebody" begin?

JD

状元
I've been puzzled when I look in dictionaries and find abbreviations used for "something" and "somebody" all over the place. I also see some people use similar abbreviations in their emails. It's not something I run across in American English dictionaries (at least not the ones I have), but seems to be often used in dictionaries outside the US.

Does anybody have any history of how this started getting used? And where it came from?

EDIT: for example, go into Pleco and search with the "white-E-mode turned on" (I don't know what you actually call this English search mode) for "sth" or "sb" to see examples of the use of the abbreviations.
 
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jlnr

进士
That sounds more like a question for the English Language Stack Exchange site? :) I've learnt these abbreviations in my English classes in Germany, around 15 years ago.
 
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