For the love of God, everybody it's etc for et cetera. Not ECT

[Moulez]

I know I'm not being unreasonable, but just please agree so that we can educate people,
Without rules, where are we?

Two thumb typing problem

YABU to care so much. It's only a typo or an insignificant little grain of ignorance. It doesn't really reduce people's ability to communicate or think, like some errors do.

We all have words and phrases we don't know how to pronounce, having only ever seen them written down. When I was at school I caused some merriment by pronouncing hyperbole as if it rhymed with superbowl. Fair enough. I also thought Penelope rhymed with antelope but fortunately heard someone else say it before I ever had occasion to do it myself.

Re et cetera - I have a Classics degree and am about as certain as I can be that it's never spelled et caetera in Latin. Wiktionary says this, though:

French
In the modern French alphabet, æ (called e-dans-l'a, 'e in the a') is used to spell Latin and Greek borrowings like curriculum vitæ, et cætera, ex æquo, tænia, and the first name Lætitia.

It sounds like it's a French thing to represent the vowel sound. It's definitely not a Latin spelling, or the spelling used in English.

Ooh for "necessary" I was taught at school, "you need a C to See the Sea". No idea how it helped me remember, or what context it's supposed to link to, but I always think of it when writing necessary!

Chauffeur is another of my tricky ones.

It’s an abbreviation.

?

You are absolutely right OP

Yeah but its not Ect ,its Etc
I used to be a mental health nurse Ect means something very different to me.

Doesn’t hyperbole rhyme with Super Bowl? Oh dear

I chose a degree in Latin with Ancient Greek because my A level results for those subjects were good.
I would never encourage any one to do the same.
Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g confirms that caetera is not Latin usage.

It is bêtes noires.

Hyper-bolee

I’d say it’s more like high - PER - bol - ee - to get the emphasis on the correct syllable. Or chuck it into google and it’ll show you the correct pronunciation.

I also thought Penelope was ‘pen - ee - lope’ when I was a kid but managed to work it out before saying it out loud - phew.

😆😆😆

My grandad used to say “you don’t want to lose your loose change” not sure if that’s helpful, but it’s how it stuck for me!

I know exactly how it should be typed but for some reason my computer and phone autocorrect to ect!

I have disabilities in my hands and so struggle with pain when typing and although the pedant in me would like to correct it sometimes I just can't face it

Ok. I agree. Emphasis on the PER.

I agree I have family members who are ferociously bright but have hideous spelling due to dyslexia and it upsets me a lot to think they may feel deterred from posting on here

I see a lot of the errors mentioned on this thread in professional emails though. Things like affect/effect, loose/lose, advise/advice, averse/adverse as well as ECT. These are words which you would expect to be in the vocabulary of a reasonably educated person. Misusing standard words or terms does give the impression that someone is poorly educated or lacks basic literacy.

How can people not know this?

YABU because it is not etc, it is etc. with a full stop.

If you're going to be a pedant, you do need to be right.

Yes, but don’t you think that if someone points out a mistake, they should actually highlight the correct form rather than another common mistake, “etc.” instead of “etc”? Otherwise, they’re just perpetuating another incorrect version.

I don’t mind being corrected. On Mumsnet, though, it’s rarely a genuine correction - it’s usually followed by loads of laughing faces and turns into a pile on. I’ve seen it happen many times, which is why the OP encouraging this behaviour (while having terrible punctuation herself) is so ironic.

I make plenty of mistakes, so I know I’m not perfect. It makes far more sense to polish my own writing before trying to “educate” others - as was so patronisingly put by the OP.

God, I’m far too invested in this thread 😂. Bloody wannabe pedants drive me mad!

I can hardly ever remember manouvere or restaurant. I remember the latter by thinking the annoyed diner would RANT if their meal was bad (I always spelled it restaraunt otherwise!). Like there's A RAT in separate.

separate - like karate

We were taught (for necessary) 1 coat, 2 socks.

Also, professor - 1 frock, 2 socks.

edited to add: when I’m tired, I have to really concentrate on there, their, they’re.