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??

Except that nobody does that any more. Full stops after abbreviations are an obsolete usage. At school in the 70s, I was taught to write e.g., i.e., Mr. and Mrs., but nobody does that nowadays. (I actually found that sentence quite tricky to type, as autocorrect insisted on capitalising the next word after each of those abbreviations.)

Oh really? I go by what Word suggests (the full stop). Am I out of date with that?

Answered my own question, there’s a GOV.uk style guide which says no full stops, so that covers my work.

Full stops after abbreviations are certainly not obsolete, though they aren't really necessary in most informal usage, and there are some instances where full stops are rare, e.g. AD and BC.

Ooh, AD and BC are another contentious issue. One of my clients insists on CE and BCE (Common Era and Before Common Era) in order to remove Christ and Christianity.

Ooh, AD and BC are another contentious issue. One of my clients insists on CE and BCE (Common Era and Before Common Era) in order to remove Christ and Christianity.

The latter are becoming the standard in scholarly work aren't they? Overdue, really, 'the year of our Lord' in Latin isn't too appropriate in many contexts in 2022 CE.

I'm very fond of et al. though when writing references in the citation style we use. Poor old Al, the unsung hero of so much research.

Not contentious at all to accept that Jews and atheists might not want to describe a time as 'the year of our Lord [Jesus Christ]'.

Molesworth fans, ect ect?

I have the impression that in the US the standard usage is still e.g. and i.e.

Not contentious at all to accept that Jews and atheists might not want to describe a time as 'the year of our Lord [Jesus Christ]'.

And many other religions and cultures. While the concept of 'cultural imperialism' is often overdone, this is a case where there's a simple enough fix. Anyway, as a pedant, BC and AD were always irritatingly out by 4 years by most estimates.

I've just remembered that I misremembered. The abbreviation does not take a full stop if the last letter is the same as the entire word. So Mrs and Mr do not need full stops.

This is how I use it, for love of Molesworth

I think that's probably where it came from in my case, too.

I did Latin but I think I might have been taught at primary school that it is et cetera. There isn't any reason not to teach common abbreviations at primary school, but I don't know if they are.

They're too busy teaching fronted adverbials.

Totally agree with this. Primary spelling and grammar is ridiculously complex asking them to know things that aren’t continued into secondary and take away any freedom of imagination except to those at the upper end. It does show the difference between those that read regularly have more understanding.

But gone are the days when they write a story and then correct it. All the teaching is upfront and then they move on.

@sanityisamyth same! I often just stop reading.

@Gatehouse77 , when you say all the teaching is upfront and then they move on, what do you mean?

Would that mean that if youD're teaching apostrophes, for instance, you talk about it one day and then never go back and practise a bit and discuss it again, just assume that they've all got it?

Sorry, that D is not meant to be there.

People who say exetra and asterix often drink expresso too.

Ect annoys me.
Many also seem to use etc, eg and ie interchangeably which also annoys me.

I am not a native English speaker and never studied Latin and always said it as et cetera - also never seen it spelled etc or maybe didn't pay attention

what do people think it means?

Very few British people get the opportunity to study Latin, more's the pity. I think people vaguely know it means 'and the rest' but have no idea why. The fact that the Latin word 'et' has passed unchanged into French, so in both languages 'et' means 'and', wouldn't occur to them. 'Cetera' means 'the rest' in Latin.

*ect

never seen it as ect