Text 31, 47 rader
Skriven 2004-11-02 10:06:45 av Ardith Hinton (1:153/716.0)
     Kommentar till text 20 av Everett Hertenstein (1:116/27.0)
Ärende: Hello!
==============
Hi, Everett!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

EH>  I had never really given a thought to the idea of a comma
EH>  before "and" until you talked about it some time ago.


          I hadn't given much thought to whether other people do or don't use a
comma before "and", since I consider it to be optional anyway.  But as a result
I was unaware that they might regard "et cetera" or "etc." differently....  :-)



EH>  Since then, I've found myself doing it some times and not
EH>  others.  It isn't a selective thing, it's just when I happen
EH>  to think of it.


          Ah.  Your usage has never struck me as incorrect, but now that I know
it's not completely consistent I can go on not noticing....  :-))



AH>  I recall that "et cetera" was still abbreviated "&c."

EH>  I remember seeing it done like that, but never wrote it
EH>  that way myself.  I wonder how the change came about?


          I don't know for sure, but Fowler's MODERN ENGLISH USAGE confirmed my
guess that the ampersand was originally a stylized way of writing "et" quickly.
The word "ampersand" is evidently a contraction of the "and _per se_ and" which
was recited at the end of the alphabet after "z" during the nineteenth century.
Fowler also notes that the ampersand is used more often in handwritten material
than in printed material... thus lending further credence to another theory.  I
imagine you remember learning to write with those awful straight pens, as I do!
When I was growing up there were such things as fountain pens & ballpoint pens,
but the former were expensive & the latter unreliable... so as hapless students
in grade three we were forced to use the old dip-it-in-the-inkwell routine.  At
least the steel nibs didn't need to be sharpened constantly.  But our Victorian
ancestors probably wrote with goose quills... in which case it's understandable
that they'd prefer not to write two letters where one and a half would do.  ;-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver BC, CANADA [604-266-5271] (1:153/716)