Et cetera
From Freepedia
- For the weblog on The New Republic website, see &c. For the Unix directory, see /etc.
Et cetera, usually abbreviated to etc. (archaic abbreviations include &c. and &/c.) is Latin for and the others. It is often used to represent the logical continuation of some sort of series of descriptions. For example:
- We need a lot of fruit: apples, bananas, oranges, etc.
(An occasional error is the use of the phrase "and etc.", which means "and and the others".)
The abbreviated versions should always be followed by a full stop, and it is customary, even in British English, in which there is frequently no comma before "and" in lists, that "etc." always be preceded by a comma. Thus:
- A, B, C, etc.
not:
- A, B, C etc.
In lists of persons, "et al." is used in place of "etc." (an abbreviation of "et alii", meaning "and others"). Less common is the use of "et al." in lists of places (where it abbreviates "et alibi", meaning "and elsewhere".
