Pain in the English offers proofreading services for short-form writing such as press releases, job applications, or marketing copy. 24 hour turnaround. Learn More
Joined: November 6, 2011
Comments posted: 6
Votes received: 15
November 9, 2011
Hilarious! And informative. Thanks for the oatmeal link, GabbyGibby.
Make Your English Work: Great blog post, I agree with your logic. Seems that not everyone does though, hence the confusion many people experience when they see the variety of forms of this abbreviation used even in what purport to be formal documents.Question: did you mean to write "f.e." rather than "f.r." in the example of the English form of e.g.?
September 7, 2012, 2:19pm
I agree with you in principle, eelc12, however it appears that what is right is being re-written as the english language evolves. I would much prefer to write e.g. as you have described above, however those above me disagree and so I must write [eg,] as per their instructions.
New words are added to dictionaries as they come into common usage, and new, shorter ways of writing things seem to be developing. It's almost a case of 'if prominent people use a previously wrong convention often enough, it will eventually become right'.
January 13, 2012, 7:05pm
*palm to forehead* Tom, you are right: my mistake.
New South Wales Australia, to be precise.
November 13, 2011, 12:26pm
Interesting, thanks. I suppose on this theme if you were to be hyper-correct, etc. should be et.c. because it stands for et cetera, but everyone seems to write etc. or just etc because it is so readily understood.
November 11, 2011, 12:41pm
My vote for silent t would go to tsunami. Does anyone actually say the t in that word?
November 6, 2011, 5:48pm
Ha ha ha - silent P in swimming pool! Think about it. With the mind of a ten year old boy.
November 6, 2011, 5:34pm
©2016 CYCLE Interactive, LLC.All Rights Reserved.