FFS it's not ECT it's ETC!

[BIWI]

Seen this twice this evening.

'Etc' is short for 'et cetera'. I have no idea what 'ect' means!

Obviously I haven't corrected/posted on the specific threads as that's a cunty thing to do. But really! Do people not know that? Do they not know that it's 'et cetera' and therefore that 'ect' makes no sense at all?!

Is it not the fault of fecking auto correct? I always presumed so.

I didn't know this until i was far older than i should've been

I don't think so. When I typed etc nothing happened. (But when I typed ect it changed it first to act and then to etc!)

My autocorrect will not let me type 'ect'. It forces it to the correct etc. Same as with as well, a lot, definitely, ridiculous and so on.

Maybe they think the full word is ectcetra. I only started using it properly a few years ago. No excuse, I read a lot so I've seen it used properly.

In Victorian times it was written as "&c", which I quite like.

I’m. Your thread title is misleading

I remember a teacher correcting this for next in primary school

I thought it was Ex-cetera. So ECT made sense.

I honestly can't get worked up over this kind of thing. It would be lovely if everyone got it right but good grammar doesn't increase the validity of whatever the person is saying.

I hear you!

Of course it's not an autocorrect, ect isn't a word or valid abbreviation.

Ah well, I'm at a loss then.

Although, Oswin's explanation sounds plausible.

Probably because a lot of people pronounce it as ‘eckcetra’. I can only imagine they have never seen The King and I

@LastOneDancing but it's not good grammar, it's spelling. And it gives me the rage! .

Sorry. I can't help it. And it does colour how I feel about the rest of the post/the poster.

Well, in my world ECT is Electro-Convulsive Therapy, which is a treatment of last resort for intractable depression.

But in every other respect I'm no your side.

Little known fact: in the scripts current at the point when the symbol for & was making its way from Latin to English, there was very little visible difference between t and c.

So 'etc' and 'ect' would look almost the same, and both would take the same abbreviation (which was then called a tironian nota, and which later on became known in English as an ampersand).

This isn't why people make the confusion (it's because ect is a much more likely combination of letters for an English speaker, and so muscle memory works against you when you type etc). But, it does mean that the confusion has a very long history.

Have they never seen The King and I? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!

Do people still use etc? I never see it written down

Sorry! Wrong thread

And Bobbin makes the point very well, @LRDtheFeministDragon that people don't understand it because they don't hear the word and/or they aren't reading it enough. Latin scripts are all very interesting, in an academic way, but don't explain why people nowadays don't know that it's written 'etc' which reflects how it's spoken.

I'd like to add that it's CAMHS and not cahms

Well, in my world ECT is Electro-Convulsive Therapy, which is a treatment of last resort for intractable depression

Yes. This.

Thank god for this thread, I've been wanting to say the same thing for ages. Etc. Please. Every time I see ect written I have to stop halfway through the sentence and inwardly scream, then check it's not my issue, then completely forget what I was reading about initially because I'm composing an AIBU where I'm scared I'll get my arse handed to me on a plate. Etc.

Language evolves, get over it.

BIWI, you missed part of my post.

The reason people make this mistake is because ect is a much more likely combination of letters for an English speaker, and so muscle memory works against you when you type etc.

As I said, the English script (not Latin - not sure where you got Latin from?) isn't why people make the confusion.

I've put in bold the bits you didn't see, so hopefully they're a bit more obvious now!

Language evolves, get over it

Indeed it does. But ECT will always stand for Electro Convulsive Therapy.

Could you be any more patronising LRD? .