etc. followed by question mark ?
livetohike
Do you want tea, coffee, etc.?
or
Do you want tea, coffee, etc?
They both look weird to me.
CDB
Me too. How about "Would you like tea or coffee, or something else?"
If the "etc." represents a short list of other choices, it might save
time in the end to list them. "Would you like tea, coffee, milk, or
apple juice?"
R H Draney
If you ask people either one, be prepared to have some of them order the
"etc"....r
--
"You got Schadenfreude on my Weltanschauung!"
"You got Weltanschauung in my Schadenfreude!"
Purl Gurl
> livetohike wrote:
>> Is it:
>> Do you want tea, coffee, etc.?
>> or
>> Do you want tea, coffee, etc?
>> They both look weird to me.
> If you ask people either one, be prepared to have some of them order the
> "etc".
No thanks on the tea and coffee but I will have
a rubber band sandwich and make it snappy.
--
Purl Gurl
--
"Then again what can you expect from a fat-assed, champagne swilling,
half-breed just off the Rez?"
- Joe Kline
Prai Jei
<hYydnd2UZ6pWDOTb...@giganews.com>:
> R H Draney wrote:
>
>> livetohike wrote:
>
>>> Is it:
>
>>> Do you want tea, coffee, etc.?
>>> or
>>> Do you want tea, coffee, etc?
>
>>> They both look weird to me.
>
>> If you ask people either one, be prepared to have some of them order the
>> "etc".
>
> No thanks on the tea and coffee but I will have
> a rubber band sandwich and make it snappy.
Stretching out your lunch break?
--
ξ:) Proud to be curly
Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply
Purl Gurl
> Purl Gurl wrote:
>> R H Draney wrote:
>>> livetohike wrote:
(snipped)
>>>> Do you want tea, coffee, etc.?
>>>> or
>>>> Do you want tea, coffee, etc?
>>> If you ask people either one, be prepared to have some of them order the
>>> "etc".
>> No thanks on the tea and coffee but I will have
>> a rubber band sandwich and make it snappy.
> Stretching out your lunch break?
...and adding some natural bounce to my curly locks!
Martin Ambuhl
They are weird.
They are silly.
They are unnecessary.
The bespeak someone who knows little English.
HVS
I see that, so far, you've only attracted the "write it differently"
brigade; but it's a valid question which can be asked of any
abbreviation with a full stop at the end of a question.
I hope someone who knows their style guides will post a definitive
answer, but my initial reaction is that I'd opt for "...etc.?"
The rationale for this is that I think if one uses the full-stopped
forms of, say, "Ph.D." and "D.Phil." -- "Was your degree a Ph.D. or a
D.Phil." -- it seems inconsistent to retain the initial stop and to
drop the final one. (One could just drop the full stops entirely, of
course, but that just side-steps the issue of a full-stopped
abbreviation before a question mark.)
I'm happy to be corrected by the style-guide gurus of AUE (but will
ignore the bleats of the copping-out "don't write it that way"
crowd).
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed
Toby A Inkster
> I'm happy to be corrected by the style-guide gurus of AUE (but will
> ignore the bleats of the copping-out "don't write it that way"
> crowd).
There's a perfectly good reason not to write it that way, and that's the
meaning of "et cetera". It's Latin for "and the rest". The person offering
the beverages is presumably offering a *choice* of said beverages, not a
*collection* of them.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
dict, thes & ency
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/06/18/dict-thes-ency/
HVS
> HVS wrote:
>
>> I'm happy to be corrected by the style-guide gurus of AUE (but
>> will ignore the bleats of the copping-out "don't write it that
>> way" crowd).
>
> There's a perfectly good reason not to write it that way, and
> that's the meaning of "et cetera". It's Latin for "and the
> rest". The person offering the beverages is presumably offering
> a *choice* of said beverages, not a *collection* of them.
But -- as I explained in the part of the post you've snipped -- the
stylistic *issue* has nothing to do with the content or meaning of
this particular sentence or abbreviation: it's how to handle a full-
stopped abbreviation at the end of a sentence terminating with a
question mark.
How would you handle that -- stylistically, without any reference to
the use or meaning of any particular abbreviation?
Lars Eighner
and talented HVS broadcast on alt.usage.english:
> But -- as I explained in the part of the post you've snipped -- the
> stylistic *issue* has nothing to do with the content or meaning of
> this particular sentence or abbreviation: it's how to handle a full-
> stopped abbreviation at the end of a sentence terminating with a
> question mark.
> How would you handle that -- stylistically, without any reference to
> the use or meaning of any particular abbreviation?
The rule as I learnt it is: the abbreviating dot does not count as
punctuation except that it is collapsed with a period if that is the
next mark.
So: In the address line should it be Dr., Mr., Miss, or Mrs.?
It should be Mr.
I cannot deny that the result is unremittingly ugly. Fortunately many of
the abbreviating periods are leaving us. Initialisms are not using them
these days. The Ft.s, Mt.s, Rt. Hon.s and so forth are not likely to occur
where punctuation is wanted. The formerly scholarly abbreviations
(including etc.) are often discouraged by modern scholarly publications
(which is not to say that modern schemes of citation used by the various
disciplines are things of beauty).
On the other hand, this only fuel for the recasting fire; there are so many
ways to avoid the few remaining problems: Why not take one of them?
And for this particular: The speaker almost certainly did not say "etc."
(In American punctuation, the period is inside the quotation marks and
collapses with the abbreviating period.) The speaker said "et cetera."
So if it is in quotation marks, write what the speaker did say.
--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/> <http://myspace.com/larseighner>
Countdown: 579 days to go.
Owing to googlegroups not screening users to eliminate spammers and other
USENET abusers, I do not see most posts from googlegroups.
HVS
> In our last episode,
> <Xns9956712D...@news.albasani.net>, the lovely and
> talented HVS broadcast on alt.usage.english:
>
>> But -- as I explained in the part of the post you've snipped --
>> the stylistic *issue* has nothing to do with the content or
>> meaning of this particular sentence or abbreviation: it's how
>> to handle a full- stopped abbreviation at the end of a sentence
>> terminating with a question mark.
>
>> How would you handle that -- stylistically, without any
>> reference to the use or meaning of any particular abbreviation?
>
> The rule as I learnt it is: the abbreviating dot does not count
> as punctuation except that it is collapsed with a period if that
> is the next mark.
>
> So: In the address line should it be Dr., Mr., Miss, or Mrs.?
> It should be Mr.
Thanks; that admirably addresses the question to hand.
> I cannot deny that the result is unremittingly ugly.
> Fortunately many of the abbreviating periods are leaving us.
> Initialisms are not using them these days. The Ft.s, Mt.s, Rt.
> Hon.s and so forth are not likely to occur where punctuation is
> wanted.
In standard UK usage as I understand it, the only one of those
which would attract a full stop would be "Hon.": the others
abbreviate with the final letter and thus do not use a stop. (In
other words, it's "Rt Hon.", not "Rt.Hon." or "Rt Hon".)
But that's beside the point, which is that I don't think it's at
all unlikely for some of those which *do* attract a full stop to
occur where punctuation is wanted. A written question along the
lines of "I'm writing to John: can you remind me if he's a Rt
Hon., or just an Hon.?" doesn't strike me as even remotely unusual.
-snip-
> On the other hand, this only fuel for the recasting fire; there
> are so many ways to avoid the few remaining problems: Why not
> take one of them?
Because simple questions can't always be nicely recast. Assuming
you (or your publisher) *does* use the stops, I don't see any
elegant way of recasting the query "Was the degree a Ph.D. or a
D.Phil.?"
"Was it a Ph.D. or a D.Phil. degree?" is one obvious recasting;
but that strikes me as much more awkward than the "...D.Phil.?"
version of the same question.
Peter Moylan
> And for this particular: The speaker almost certainly did not say "etc."
> (In American punctuation, the period is inside the quotation marks and
> collapses with the abbreviating period.) The speaker said "et cetera."
> So if it is in quotation marks, write what the speaker did say.
Nobody says "etc.", it's true, but I've heard a few saying "ect".
--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Toby A Inkster
> How would you handle that -- stylistically, without any reference to
> the use or meaning of any particular abbreviation?
I would use: etc?
My argument would be that the dot at the end of the abbreviation still
exists -- it's just merged into the dot at the bottom of the question mark
for aesthetic purposes -- much as the dot at the top of an "i" merges into
the curve of the "f" in the "fi" ligature found in decent fonts.
livetohike
> On 20 Jun 2007,livetohikewrote
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Whether you are write or not makes
no difference to me. It was the only sane attempt at actually
answering what I asked. Do you write books, poems, articles, etc.?
livetohike
wrote:
OK, forget my lousy example.
How about:
Will this insecticide kill ants, cockroaches, nits, etc.?
Skitt
> Toby A Inkster wrote:
>> HVS wrote:
>>> I'm happy to be corrected by the style-guide gurus of AUE (but will
>>> ignore the bleats of the copping-out "don't write it that way"
>>> crowd).
>>
>> There's a perfectly good reason not to write it that way, and that's
>> the meaning of "et cetera". It's Latin for "and the rest". The
>> person offering the beverages is presumably offering a *choice* of
>> said beverages, not a *collection* of them.
>
> OK, forget my lousy example.
>
> How about:
> Will this insecticide kill ants, cockroaches, nits, etc.?
Perfect.
--
Skitt
no style-guide guru, but able to make some marks on paper.
HVS
> On Jun 20, 6:09 pm, HVS <use...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> wrote:
-snip-
>> I'm happy to be corrected by the style-guide gurus of AUE (but
>> will ignore the bleats of the copping-out "don't write it that
>> way" crowd).
> Thank you, thank you, thank you. Whether you are write or not
> makes no difference to me. It was the only sane attempt at
> actually answering what I asked. Do you write books, poems,
> articles, etc.?
Nope; just architectural history reports.
Amethyst Deceiver
> HVS wrote:
>
>> I'm happy to be corrected by the style-guide gurus of AUE (but will
>> ignore the bleats of the copping-out "don't write it that way"
>> crowd).
>
> There's a perfectly good reason not to write it that way, and that's
> the meaning of "et cetera". It's Latin for "and the rest". The person
> offering the beverages is presumably offering a *choice* of said
> beverages, not a *collection* of them.
Not necessarily. I'm often asked to book catering for meetings. I'm asked to
book tea, coffee etc. That means tea, coffee, herbal drinks and plain
bottled water. A choice.
--
Linz
Wet Yorks via Cambridge, York, London and Watford
My accent may vary
CDB
> Toby A Inkster wrote:
>> HVS wrote:
>>
>>> I'm happy to be corrected by the style-guide gurus of AUE (but
>>> will ignore the bleats of the copping-out "don't write it that
>>> way" crowd).
>>
>> There's a perfectly good reason not to write it that way, and
>> that's the meaning of "et cetera". It's Latin for "and the rest".
>> The person offering the beverages is presumably offering a
>> *choice* of said beverages, not a *collection* of them.
>
> Not necessarily. I'm often asked to book catering for meetings. I'm
> asked to book tea, coffee etc. That means tea, coffee, herbal
> drinks and plain bottled water. A choice.
It will be a choice for the participants, but you are booking all of
them: tea, coffee, herbal drinks, *and* bottled water, as you say.
The "t, c and other things" is appropriate for your decision. But the
decision of the participants, who will presumably not choose one of
each, is for t, c, hd, *or* pbw. I have often thought there should be
something like "autc." (aut ceterum, "or another thing") available for
use on these occasions.
Peter Tan
> Lars Eighner wrote:
> > And for this particular: The speaker almost certainly did not say "etc."
> > (In American punctuation, the period is inside the quotation marks and
> > collapses with the abbreviating period.) The speaker said "et cetera."
> > So if it is in quotation marks, write what the speaker did say.
>
> Nobody says "etc.", it's true, but I've heard a few saying "ect".
>
> --
spell it out:
Would you like tea, coffee et cetera?
Peter
Amethyst Deceiver
There's a choice, but it's not a single one. People go back for refills and
may take a hot drink and bottled water.
CDB
I understand that. I still think the only direct response to "Would
you like A, B, and C?" is a yes or a no, because that is the only
choice the question offers. I concede that I, personally. would
respond, "Tea, please." (Or, if feeling ornery, "Do you have oolong?"