# "&c." = "etcetera"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 16, 2004, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/c-etcetera/255355 "2004-07-16T00:58:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/c-etcetera/255355/1 "2004-07-16T00:58:12Z")
I keep coming across this strange (to me) short few characters at the end of lists in a book I am reading (Origin of Species) I assume it is a way of saying ‘etcetera’ Is that right? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/c-etcetera/255355/2 "2004-07-16T01:01:38Z")
Yes. The ampersand symbol (&) is a stylized version of the letters “Et”, Latin for _and_. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/c-etcetera/255355/3 "2004-07-16T01:24:38Z")
Yes, and _&c._ (which is identical to _etc._) isn’t an abreviated **word** , _etcetera_, but an abreviated **phrase** , _et cetera_, which is Latin for “and others”. So the _et_ that is sometimes written _&_ really means _and_, which is sometimes written _&_, which is really a way of writing _et_. And so on. Got it? ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/c-etcetera/255355/4 "2004-07-16T01:28:06Z")
Yes. That’s _two_ interesting things I’ve learned today. I didn’t know ‘&’ was a stylised ‘Et’ but now that I look at it, it does looke like an ‘E’ merged with a ‘t’ (doesn’t look like that on the keyboard though) Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/c-etcetera/255355/5 "2004-07-16T01:29:48Z")
In fact the one on the keyboard looks almost nothing like the one on the screen! **&** ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/c-etcetera/255355/6 "2004-07-16T02:04:43Z")
Look at the one in the thread title. It should look more like the one on your keyboard. It’s not **that** different, though. Close the loop at the top and slant the crossbar down, and you’ve pretty much got it. The ampersand is quite variable amoung different typefaces. Type designers really go to town on it sometimes. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&_&&&&& &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&_ I’m rather fond of the Courrier New and Frankling Gothic Italics, myself. As an added bit of trivia, the word _ampersand_ comes from 19th century schoolchildren being made to recite the alphabet. _&_ came at the end following _Z_. The children were specifically taught that certain characters were, by themselves, whole words. When the teacher pointed to the first letter, they were taught to say “A, _per se,_ ‘a’.” (A, by itself, is “a”.) When the teacher pointed to the ninth letter, the children were taught to say “I, _per se,_ ‘I’.” And when the teacher pointed to the last character, the children were taught to say, “And, _per se_, ‘and’.” The children, of course, had no idea what this meant, and slurred the words together, and at least an entire generation grew up thinking they were being taught that the name of this symbol was _ampersand_. Which it now is. ---
**Author:** ![Dancer\_Flight](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dancer_flight/32/7601_2.png) [@Dancer\_Flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dancer_Flight)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/c-etcetera/255355/7 "2004-07-18T03:58:14Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > _et cetera_, which is Latin for “and others”. I was going to nitpick this as I’d always parsed it as “and so on _or_ and so forth”, but checked out some online sources and many of them use the phrasing: “and the others, and so of the rest”. In my writing I commonly resort to _et al._ short for _et alia_: “and others.” The prime difference is that _et cetera_ commonly refers to objects and list items whereas _et alia_ refers exclusively to persons (quite often the remainder of the authors of a paper in my case). -DF ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/c-etcetera/255355/8 "2004-07-18T04:10:13Z")
That type of symbol, merging the e and the t in et, is called a Tironian note – from the type of shorthand found in ancient and mediaeval manuscripts, and called after Cicero’s secretary. One of my minor fields was Latin palaeography, and I took several courses in learning to decipher the various old hands (both bookhand and notarial). There is a terrific, standard dictionary for the various symbols compiled by Capelli. The third picture on this link [http://www.evellum.com/ductus/demo/engine/ductus/frames/terms/tironian\_notes.html](http://www.evellum.com/ductus/demo/engine/ductus/frames/terms/tironian_notes.html) is an _et_ or ampersand from a mediaeval manuscript. This link [http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/tablets/TVIIcat-shand.shtml](http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/tablets/TVIIcat-shand.shtml) shows you examples of the Vindolanda Letters, found near Hadrian’s Wall, and dating from the early second century. (Scroll down for the link to the samples). You can see the Vindolanda Letters on display in the British Museum, and if you toddle up to the British Library, there are quite a number of manuscripts on display. A lovely book to see the scripts and samples of the writing from the first century AD until about the 17th is Michelle Brown’s \*A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 \*(1990) She is one of the people I studied with. Probably more than you wanted to know, but it is one of my favourite subjects! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/c-etcetera/255355/9 "2004-07-18T15:36:26Z")
> [@Dancer\_Flight](#): > > In my writing I commonly resort to _et al._ short for _et alia_: “and others.” The prime difference is that _et cetera_ commonly refers to objects and list items whereas _et alia_ refers exclusively to persons (quite often the remainder of the authors of a paper in my case).-DF _Et alii_ means “and other people” (a male or a mixed group); _et aliae_ means “and other people” (an exculsively female group); _et alia_ means “and other things”. Any of them can be abbreviated _et al._. _Et cetera_ means “and the rest”. As originally construed, _et cetera_ is neuter so it should refer only to things, not people. But many careful writers and writing authorities no longer follow that stricture.