Not all English rules must be broken—unless, of course, they must, etc.
49 Two Fowlers wrote the book, F.G. and brother Henry W. Should not the book’s title technically be Fowlers' Modem English Usage?
Here’s an English rule I encountered recently that I like: “When using Latin abbreviations in English, don’t.” Simple as that.
When deploying the ibid. s and the viz.s and the vs.s and the dozens of other Latin phrases we’re subjected to in truncated and period-ended explication, you build yourself traps that you’re certain to fall into yourself at one point or another, lx., you might misuse i.e., as I just did. I.e. means “that is to say,” and introduces a specific rephrasing of the point before. I should have used e.g., which stands for “by way of example” (though in the context of abuse of Latin abbreviations, I also suggest that e.g. is a nice abbreviation of egregious). If you mean to say “for example,” say “for example” and stop fretting over whether i.e. or e.g. is the appropriate confusing abbreviation. And if you mean to say “that is to say” or “in other words,” think about restructuring your initial prose so that you don’t have to immediately rephrase it.
In technical truncation (footnotes for scholarly papers, for instance), the convention of cf. s and ibid. s and n.b.s (nota who?) is perfectly appropriate. But scholarly papers are not the subject of this book, in that they are rarely written in anything recognizable as English. Jump beyond the simple confusion between i.e. and e.g., and consider that ibid, sounds like a frog noise, and that cf. recalls a trendy modern-day abbreviation of a couple of earthy English words, even though cf. simply means “compare” (cf. slang from the Vietnam War and from the world of computer IT and from the Jon Stewart I Daily Show 2007-2008 series, Clusterf@#k to the White House).
One particular dangerous-territory Latin abbreviation is et al., risky from a couple of standpoints. One is that it is regularly misab- breviated as I’ve just done it. Et is a complete word, but by analogy with the abbreviation that immediately follows it, it is often branded
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Bill Brohaugh
with a period. Al. is indeed an abbreviation, as in this example (e.g., i.e., r.s.v.p.): The book was written by George Burns, et al.
The translation, of course, is that the book was written by George Burns, et (meaning “and”) al. (short for “Allen”). So et al. is a Burns and Allen routine (say ibid., Gracie).
With all shtick aside, al. is an abbreviation of alia, and et al. means “and others” (i.e., and oth.). But who knows that to the point of being able to navigate the figurative waters between Scylla and Charybdis (who are, yes I know, Greek).
Now, because this book is called Everything You Know About English Is Wrong, I must now contradict the very rule that I praised at the beginning of this entry: “When using Latin abbreviations in English, don’t.” Sometimes, do.
My two favorite uses of a Latin abbreviation appear in some quite popular media. Picture first bald and regal Yul Brynner declaring “Et setterah, et setterah, et setterah” in the musical The King and I. The pomposity of the King’s use of etc. drives home another reason to eschew using Latin abbreviations in general text and conversation: it’s pompous.
Next, bring to mind “Elenore,” the ’60s oldies hit from The Turtles (hint—rhyme “El” with “swell”). The entire song (in particular the lyric line “You’re my pride and joy, et cetera”) was intended to be a sarcastic dig at schmaltzy pop lyrics, as well as at the record company that demanded same from The Turtles. Such wonderful sarcasm I can appreciate, in the spirit of my condemning Latin abbreviations by earlier writing “as in the following example (e.g., i.e., r.s.v.p.).” The Turtles did it better.
Now, back to the original rule about using such dead-language abbreviations in our very vibrant language—just where did I find this advice? Check out the footnote. 5
s ° Cf. p. 34, ibid., v. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, op. cit., c.v., c spot run, run spot run, r.b.i., c.d. available on videocassette.