etc. vs. "ect"
Mary-Sue Haliburton
the term "etc." meant "and the rest of it". When I took Latin in Grade 9, I
discovered its origin: the latin words are ET CETERA, which means "and the
rest of it". "Et" and "c", the first letter of the second word, make the
abbreviation. Clear and simple.
Lately, I have been seeing this other word, "ect", being used in situations
where I would have said "et cetera" (pronounced with soft "C" sound
"etsettera").
So, I am curious. Do you say "eckt" when you see "ect."?
To those who do this I would like to pose this question:
Why are you writing this this nearly-unpronounceable "ect" (ecked? eckt?)
instead of simple, logical old "etcetera"?
MSH in Ottawa
Henry Churchyard
Mary-Sue Haliburton <mshali...@genesis.achilles.net> wrote:
>Lately, I have been seeing this other word, "ect", being used
It all has to do with the mysterious esoteric occult cult of ECKTANKAR
;-) ;-) ;-)
--
"I purposely abstain from dates, that every one may|| Henry Churchyard
be at liberty to fix THEIR own, aware that the cure||chur...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
of unconquerable passions and the transfer of unchanging attachments must vary
much as to time in different people." -M.P. http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~churchh
Richard VandeVelde
On 3 Feb 1996, Barbara A Cohen wrote:
> Mary-Sue Haliburton (mshali...@genesis.achilles.net) wrote:
<snip stuff about the origins of etc.>
> : Lately, I have been seeing this other word, "ect", being used in situations
> : where I would have said "et cetera" (pronounced with soft "C" sound
> : "etsettera").
...
> : So, I am curious. Do you say "eckt" when you see "ect."?
I suspect we have here the "problem" of how we learned to "pronounce"
Latin. I have heard the following (excuse me for not using the
"official" pronunication guide, but I don't have it at hand, and I think
that the following will be understood):
*cetera* is pronounced /setera/ or /chetera/ or /ketera/ just as
*Cicero* is pronounced /sisero/ or /chichero/ or /kikero/
depending on the way in which you learned to pronouce Latin. E.g. Here at
Loyola, I believe that the folks who teach Latin routinely pronouce
*Cicero* as -Kikero- when they are reading Latin, whereas I learned the
more italinate pronunciation which I would not use except in reading
Latin outloud -- a rare occasion. Therefore I would hazard a guess that
those who use the "ketera" pronunciation might be more prone to the
--ect-- variation. Then again, the number of us who happened to study
Latin and are able to influence (let alone complain about) standard
pronunciation is diminishing. Sic transit gloria Swanson!
This reminds me of the whole /aks/ vs. /ask/ issue, which of course is
another thread!
-----==========----------=========V V=========----------===========-----
Dick VandeVelde | va...@math.luc.edu
Loyola University, Chicago | http://www.math.luc.edu/~vande
-----==========----------=========V V=========----------===========-----
Rainer Thonnes
tr...@lunemere.com (Truly Donovan) writes:
> mshali...@genesis.achilles.net (Mary-Sue Haliburton) writes:
> >So, I am curious. Do you say "eckt" when you see "ect."?
>
> pronounced identically "et cetera."
I wouldn't go so far as to agree that it is just as logical, merely that it
is defensible, if you were to choose, in abbreviating, to omit the 't' from
"et", and to abbreviate "cetera" as "ct". This does not seem as natural to
me as leaving the "et" intact.
Properly, both abbreviations ought to be pronounced as the unabbreviated "et
cetera", but in practice people often don't, just as they would say "et al"
and not "et alios" after the main author of a multi-authored paper.
It seems that "eckt" rolls off the tongue more easily than "etts",
particularly when doubling it up for effect ("ect ect" instead of "and so on
and so forth"). I had assumed that the writing "ect" was a back-formation
from this lazy practise, and that the preferred written form remains "etc".
> I can't recall seeing "ect." in anything modern, but I've seen it in old
> stuff.
That's interesting. How old? Where?
Martin A. Mazur
njg...@ix.netcom.com(Nancy J. Gill ) wrote:
>In <4f5i4k$p...@maureen.teleport.com> Linda Baty <ba...@teleport.com>
>writes:
>
>
>>as the unabbreviated form. The only reason I can think of for anyone
>>to pronounce it differently would be as a rather idiotic attempt at
>>humor.
>
>Tell that to the persons who seem to believe that the word(s) the
>abbreviation "etc." represents is "Exetera"
Hey, I used to work with a guy who would say "cetry cetry". All the time. At
meetings. It would drive me crazy.
--
Martin A. Mazur | 2nd Century thoughts on MTV:
The Applied Research Laboratory | "There is no public entertainment which
The Pennsylvania State University | does not inflict spiritual damage"
| - Tertullian
Rex Knepp
: mshali...@genesis.achilles.net (Mary-Sue Haliburton) wrote:
: >
: >Lately, I have been seeing this other word, "ect", being used in situations
: >where I would have said "et cetera" (pronounced with soft "C" sound
: >"etsettera").
: >So, I am curious. Do you say "eckt" when you see "ect."?
: >To those who do this I would like to pose this question:
: >Why are you writing this this nearly-unpronounceable "ect" (ecked? eckt?)
: >instead of simple, logical old "etcetera"?
: I don't understand the question. Anyone who is writing "ect" for "etc."
: is misspelling the abbreviation for "et cetera. Like most abbreviations
: of single words (Mrs., Dr., Sun.) "etc." is pronounced exactly the same
: as the unabbreviated form. The only reason I can think of for anyone to
: pronounce it differently would be as a rather idiotic attempt at humor.
: Incidentally, there's nothing difficult about pronouncing "ect," It
: rhymes with "decked." Pronouncing "etc." as if it were a word would be
: darn near impossible. Good thing there's no reason to ever do it.
One of the partitions on my (SUN SparcStation LX) hard drive is /etc; it's
apparently a repository for many files occasionally needed by various
add-ons to the operating system: the automounter, ftp server software,
and the like (should I have written etc. (; ).
My system administrator (not to be confused with the sysop who won't
help me with my return address) calls this directory system "ett-see."
His native language is Farsi. My previous system administrator, however,
also called it "ett-see." (Hmmm... her husband's native language is Farsi.
could it be pillow-talk? is Jim Hormuzdiar out there?)
-30-
rex
============================================================================
kn...@hou.moc.com
Rex Knepp - Marathon Oil Company - Tyler, TX
Marathon has no opinions: these are, therefore, mine.
=============================================================================
Peter Hoogenboom
: To those who do this I would like to pose this question:
: Why are you writing this this nearly-unpronounceable "ect" (ecked? eckt?)
: instead of simple, logical old "etcetera"?
I don't use "ect," but I imagine that those who do pronounce it "ecksetera."
Peter
--
Peter Hoogenboom phoo...@wlu.edu
Department of Music, DuPont 208 hoogen...@fs.sciences.wlu.edu
Washington and Lee University phoog...@wesleyan.edu
Lexington, VA 24450 (540) 463-8697
Matthew Rabuzzi
Mary-Sue Haliburton <mshali...@genesis.achilles.net> wrote:
: Lately, I have been seeing this other word, "ect", being used
Accept no imitations. "Echt" is the real thing.
............................................................
Politically Correcht
Matthew Rabuzzi
Cerebus The Aardvark
>One of the partitions on my (SUN SparcStation LX) hard drive is /etc; it's
>apparently a repository for many files occasionally needed by various
>add-ons to the operating system: the automounter, ftp server software,
>and the like (should I have written etc. (; ).
>My system administrator (not to be confused with the sysop who won't
>help me with my return address) calls this directory system "ett-see."
>His native language is Farsi. My previous system administrator, however,
>also called it "ett-see." (Hmmm... her husband's native language is Farsi.
>could it be pillow-talk? is Jim Hormuzdiar out there?)
"et-cee" is the normal jargon in "compuspeak" for the /etc directory. I
called it "et cettera" myself, but I get strange looks sometimes.
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Daan Sandee
|> r...@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Rainer Thonnes) wrote:
|>
|> >Properly, both abbreviations ought to be pronounced as the unabbreviated "et
|> >cetera", but in practice people often don't, just as they would say "et al"
|> >and not "et alios" after the main author of a multi-authored paper.
|>
|> speech; this isn't to say it doesn't happen but is to claim that it's
I can't remember hearing it either. I can't imagine pronouncing it
other than /Et'sEt@ra/.
|> rare in colloquial British English. On the other hand I have heard "et
|> al". I suspect that this is because the latter is only partly
|> assimilated into English, and those that use it have both picked it up
|> from written matter, where the abbreviation is almost universal, and
|> remembered that they might have to use inflections other than "alios"
|> in only partially recollected circumstances.
I don't see why 'et al.' should mean 'et alios'. Where does the accusative
come from ? Strangely enough, my dictionaries appear reluctant to list
"et al.", though containing a number of far more important entries like "et
hoc genus omne" and "et tu Brute", but the one entry I found said, as
expected, "et alii". If you want to be very pedantic and cite a book by
Smith, Jones, et al., you can always explain it is "et aliis".
|>
|> (I attracted queries about some minutes by using _inter alios_ rather
|> than _inter alia_ when referring to people, but I've never seen or
|> heard that abbreviated.)
Correct - because 'inter', unlike 'et', is a preposition. And I wouldn't
accept 'inter alia' for people either. If you can't use Latin properly,
don't use it at all.
Daan Sandee san...@think.com
Burlington, MA
Andrew Arensburger
> In practice, saying just "et al" makes sense, unless one wants to get
> into another P.C. gender fight:
> et alii = and others (masculine)
> et aliae = and others (feminine)
> et alia = and others (neuter) ("a paper by Prigogine *and things*")
Hmmm... in another ten years or so, this might actually be
useful: Prigogine and his web-crawler (to do the research) and his
expert system (to collate the results) and his other expert system (to
critique the results) and his language processor (to turn his muddled
thoughts into coherent English sentences).
> et alibi = and elsewhere
"Proceedings of the 9th Annual Conference on Distributed
Conferencing, Jul. 2017, New York, Eugene, Sydney, New Delhi et
alibi."
Sprinkle :-)s liberally throughout.
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy Center for Automation Research
are...@cfar.umd.edu University of Maryland
A message from the depths of Hell!
Martin Hardcastle
Cerebus The Aardvark <kr...@netcom.com> wrote:
>"et-cee" is the normal jargon in "compuspeak" for the /etc directory. I
>called it "et cettera" myself, but I get strange looks sometimes.
Over here I've never heard it pronounced as anything other than `et
cetera'.
Martin, who writes it `&c' except when using Unix...
--
Martin Hardcastle Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, Cambridge
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
Lewis Ramage
>To those who do this I would like to pose this question:
>Why are you writing this this nearly-unpronounceable "ect" (ecked? eckt?)
>instead of simple, logical old "etcetera"?
I use ect all the time. I can't bloody tpye.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|Lewis Ramage Le...@lramage.demon.co.uk |
=======================================================================
Matthew Rabuzzi
Recently I wrote:
: Thenaliterate = palmreader
: Thealiterate = reader of tea leaves
: Sthenothealiterate = reader of weak tea leaves
: Galactosthenothealiterate = reader of weak tea with a spot of milk, thank you
A, a, a, please excuse my attack of hebetude. Those last two should be
Asthenothealiterate &
Galactasthenothealiterate,
of course.
I've since done some mental calisthenics and my mind is sharp again.
............................................................
Ectoliterate = those who think "etc" is written "ect",
OR a ghost writer
Endoliterate = those who skip ahead to the last chapter
of mystery novels
Matthew Rabuzzi
Daan Sandee
>
>Recently I wrote:
>: Thenaliterate = palmreader
>: Thealiterate = reader of tea leaves
>: Sthenothealiterate = reader of weak tea leaves
>: Galactosthenothealiterate = reader of weak tea with a spot of milk, thank you
>
>A, a, a, please excuse my attack of hebetude. Those last two should be
> Asthenothealiterate &
> Galactasthenothealiterate,
Asaccharogalactasthenothealiterate. No sugar, please.
Matthew Rabuzzi
Daan Sandee <san...@think.com> writes:
: rab...@patch.tandem.com (Matthew Rabuzzi) writes:
: >: Thealiterate = reader of tea leaves
: >: Asthenothealiterate = reader of weak tea leaves
: >: Galactasthenothealiterate = reader of weak tea with a spot of milk
:
: Asaccharogalactasthenothealiterate. No sugar, please.
Citrogalactasthenothealiterate = Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman!
............................................................
"Spear change, bwana?" asked the pun handler
Matthew Rabuzzi
Daan Sandee
>
>Daan Sandee <san...@think.com> writes:
>: rab...@patch.tandem.com (Matthew Rabuzzi) writes:
>: >: Thealiterate = reader of tea leaves
>: >: Asthenothealiterate = reader of weak tea leaves
>: >: Galactasthenothealiterate = reader of weak tea with a spot of milk
>:
>: Asaccharogalactasthenothealiterate. No sugar, please.
>
>Citrogalactasthenothealiterate = Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman!
That should be Lemonigalactasthenothealiterate.
Galactonephothermhydroliterate = Asterix in Britain. The ultimate tea.
I should point out that that medium has indeed been used for the
same purpose as tea leaves, though hardly by Panoramix.
Monte Haun
my mouth water. Monte Haun
Monte Haun
and even paused between words. I think users may think it's spelled
excetera. Monte Haun
Rainer Thonnes
r...@dsbc.icl.co.uk (Roy Lakin) writes:
> Peter Moylan or Mary-Sue Haliburton wrote:
> > the spoken "etsetera"? (Misspelling deliberate, to
> >underline the point that nobody says "et ketera".)
>
> Latin scholars might
Yes, but only *might*. Some of them call a spade a spade, others
call it a shovel. Some are quite happy with Sissero and Julius
Seezer, not all of them would have us say Kickero and Keezer.
> It's different for Un*x nerds: "/etc" comes at the beginning of a
> long string of names, and we pronounce it "ET-see."
Do you? Oh well, whatever turns you on.
Those Unix system administrators who don't consider themselves
to be nerds, on the other hand, say "slash etcetera".
Earle D. Jones
r...@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Rainer Thonnes) wrote:
> In article <4hp1lc$e...@eccles.dsbc.icl.co.uk>,
> r...@dsbc.icl.co.uk (Roy Lakin) writes:
>
> > Peter Moylan or Mary-Sue Haliburton wrote:
> > > the spoken "etsetera"? (Misspelling deliberate, to
> > >underline the point that nobody says "et ketera".)
========== Clip here ============
But many say, "eck cetera".
The same sort of people who say, "astericks".
Which is correct, I ax you?
earle
=====
--
..no sig is good sig..
Richard D. Dinkin
>almost everyone abbreviates it.
Actually, I don't use "etc." in writing; for some reason I always write &c.
(And yes, I know that the ampersand was originally a ligature of E to t.)
-AJD