It's a Puzzlement

As movie musical lovers everywhere know, when the king in “The King & I” wants to show off his intelligence without having to actually go into any detail, he ends his boast by bellowing “et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.” In the 1873 book upon which the movie is based, The English Governess at the Siamese Court, the author Anna Leonowens used the now passé spelling, &c., when she wrote that the king delighted in “music of every description, and in taming of dogs, monkeys, &c., &c….”   In the real world we use the abbreviation of et cetera to mean “and so forth” or “and others.” But let’s use it correctly, as it was meant to be used, etc. It’s etc., not ect. As it means “and other things,” etc., avoid writing “and etc.” Since it’s an abbreviation, it requires a period. And when it appears in the middle of a sentence, it requires a period and a comma, like in the sentence above. Despite being an abbreviation of a Latin word, it is not italicized. “And other things,” “and the rest,” and “and so forth” are perfectly good ways to say et cetera without using etc. Because it does mean “and other things,” using it at the end of a sentence or phase that begins with “For example” or “such as” is redundant since both phrases imply that there are “others.” For example, I ate an apple tarte tatin, a gooseberry pie, and a pound of butter cookies. The implication here is that I ate even more. Don’t use etc. more than once in a row unless you’re the King of Siam or Yul Brynner.

Comments

[Karen Russell]

I hate etc.! When my students use it -- whether in PR writing class or on a resume -- I usually cross it out in red. If it's important enough to include, then say what the "others" are; and if it's not important enough, why are you mentioning it at all? Apologies to Yul, but I think etc. is lazy.