Ect...

[Gatehouse77]

Do people misspell this because they mishear it (like would 'of' which I can understand, albeit wrong), they've copied someone or what?

The word is etcetera - the second sound is a t, why do they put c??

I think it's just because it's so prevalent and, being an abbreviation, it doesn't look like it sounds anyway.

Because they don’t know it means et cetera / haven’t seen it written in full before. Don’t know French for ‘and’ is ‘et’ I guess.

Maybe they’re doing Et Ce Tera.

(And @MassiveSalad22 yes ‘et’ is French but ‘et cetera’ is latin.)

It's because (if you don't know what it stands for) etc doesn't seem like a possible English word.

Oh that’s cool! I always wanted to learn Latin. My parents always mock me for not knowing Latin but how am I meant to know Latin if they didn’t teach me (it wasn’t taught at my schools!) 😂🙄

Pobody’s nerfect hey! Everyone doesn’t know some piece of common knowledge I’m sure.

Yes as a child I thought this is what the abbreviation was. It's not such a wild assumption.

Ect looks right to me, I don't know why. I have to make an effort to spell it as etc.

One of my biggest annoyances. I struggle to read anything further if "ect" has been written. How hard is it to write a 3 letter word?! I've also just written ect and the app has highlighted it as a spelling mistake and STILL people don't correct it?!

I’ve often seen it written as &c in older books. That confused me until I realised it was the same as etc

How do the "ect" people say it? I'd always assumed it was just a fat fingers typo - like I type "form" instead of "from", and usually get the letters in my own name in the wrong order...

What do they think it means if they don't know it's an abbreviation for "et cetera"?

eckseh tra ?

I've heard people say eck cetera (also a toe-curler for me!). I think they genuinely don't know that the t is there so wouldn't write it either.

Sometimes spellcheckers want you to type 'etc.' with a full stop and I think that may muddy the waters if anyone is unsure.

Yes, in many accents that's how it's said. Ex et ra.

People rarely say "et cetera" (unless they're performing in The King and I). What usually comes out of people's mouths is "eksetra". They will have seen 'etc', but never really thought about the spelling. You can't really blend 'etc' into a pronounceable word, but you can blend 'ect'. So if you say "eksetra" and you know that the word is written as a group of those three letters, then 'ect' makes sense.

I doubt most people have any idea of the etymology of et cetera/etc.

It's because they say exetra. The same people say asterix for asterisk.

Asterisk: the danger of poking yourself in the eye with a Michaelmas daisy.

I should get my ex-colleague to answer your question. She used to regularly write ‘no’ as ‘know’.

As above, they think the abbreviation is et cetera rather than et cetera.

E, c and t do actually appear in the phrase in that order, so I don't think this is such an egregious mistake.

Sometimes spellcheckers want you to type 'etc.' with a full stop and I think that may muddy the waters if anyone is unsure.
The phrase is et cetera, commonly written as etc. because the cetera has been abbreviated. Hence the full stop - to show abbreviation - just like in Co. or e.g.
No muddy waters involved.

I've been learning Latin on DuoLingo. It's quite good.

Exsetra

@JenniferBarkley , as my pp, they say Exetra. They probably think Ect is short for ec cetra

I'm perfectly aware that etc is short for et cetera but among certain of my friends and one online messageboard in particular people use 'ect' ironically. Partly because using the abbreviation etc in normal colloquial English is a bit naff (better to use 'and so on') and partly because it's a cliquey group identifier. We rather enjoy it when people join the messageboard and explain to us that it should be etc and not ect.

Yeah, not a priority for me I’m afraid! Probably same for the ect folks.