Ect / Etc

[JoWithABow]

Why do so many people (on mumsnet especially) write ect rather than etc? Am I missing something?

Oh my god! I’ve been noticing this so much recently and it really irritates me. I think it’s people just not knowing how to write it.

Dull fair enough, obviously your daughter and fellow dyslexics are off the hook on this one, I can't claim my spelling and grammar are perfect either.

I guess I know I'm being a little unreasonable in the big scheme of things but I feel better knowing it's not just me who finds ect infuriating. I feel a lot better getting this off my chest.

Lozmato shall we start correcting people when we see it? I'm so tempted.

It's because people say ec setera.

Sometimes it's a quote from Molesworth, isn't it? Like a sort of grammatical double-bluff.

It's not a typo, imo it's simple ignorance. They have no idea of the Latin.

I think social media has highlighted this as a problem, previously people didn't write for large audiences and there were probably just as many people who didn't know what they were writing/typing but it wasn't as obvious.

The same goes for draw and all the other similar misspellings

That's a good point sandy. If it wasn't for social media I suppose only work colleagues would have to endure bad spelling. I hadn't thought of that.

mike and those people have clearly never seen The King and I

Probably a typo, and one that doesn't necessarily jump out at people as being wrong

I automatically think electro convulsive therapy (ect), brings a whole new meaning to many posts. I guess that is why it isn't automatically corrected.

It can be easy when typing quickly on a small phone keypad to make mistakes especially as they might type e and t with the same thumb and the c with a different thumb. Probably wouldn't get the same typo if touch typing correctly because the same finger would go to the c and then the t. Some people of course just think it is ect. rather than etc.

It makes me a bit twitchy when people make errors in posts complaining about other people's errors. Sanity why did you have to miss out an apostrophe? I'm all of a twitch now .

Shouldwestayorshouldwego the electro therapy thing has crossed my mind before too haha.

I feel a spot of poetry coming on.

allpoetry.com/my-sweet-old-etcetera

Do punctuation pedants cope with reading e e cummings?

The one that really bugs me is when eg and ie are muddled up. They are completely different - which do you mean?!