My burning hatred of Latin abbreviations

And why you should share it

2006.04.22 — Culture | Language | by Roland Grant

I hate Latin abbreviations. I don't speak Latin. I don't know anyone who does. No one I know knows what the abbreviations stand for except me, and I do only because I'm a word nerd and a professional military strategist, so I'm trained to know my enemy.

No you're not. —Ed.

You know what I'm talking about: i.e., e.g., etc. Do you know any more? There are dozens. Only English professors and writers of academic articles know more than a handful: et al., cf., ibid., viz. God damn, I hate them. Khaaaaaan!

In my time as a writer, I have often been irked by the love that many people have of Latin. I don't just mean abbreviations. They insist that somehow "navigate" is inherently better than "go" or that "present" is better than "show." They don't know why. They just think it's more "professional."

Our Germanic heritage is mighty and strong. Our Latin heritage is resourceful and potent. Our Latin patriarchs defecated in the arboretum. Our German fathers took a shit in the woods. We're talking a thousand years of Latin-spouting Norman French nobility's dominance over lowly Saxon peasants. It's deeply ingrained.

Many spelled-out Latin phrases are harmless enough. They are so familiar that they are practically English borrowings now. Ad hoc, ad nauseam, versus, bona fide, de facto, and the rest. But that's no reason to go around scattering abbreviations for Latin words and phrases in our writings when we don't even know what they stand for, much less what they mean.

etc. and et al.

Etc. is the exception. Everyone knows and loves etc. It's small and inoffensive, useful and brief, and trips of the tongue with a flourish. Most people know that it stands for et cetera and that that means "and the rest." That begs the question of why we don't just say "and the rest" and abbreviate it &r, but oh well. I would be happy just to make it an actual word: etcetra. Useful, serviceable, evidence of its own history, abbreviateable.... but somehow the Latinness lives on while "a lot" and "all right" collapse into "alot" and "alright."

Et al. is another matter, and a nauseating one. It's virtually the same as etc. except it refers to people. Et al. means "and others." This is not especially useful (it's used primarily to refer to the rest of a long list of authors of a book), not attractive, not easy to say, and no one knows what it stands for (et alii). It's not a useful distinction. It's a vile little worm of a phrase compared to etc. and should be replaced by it entirely.

i.e. and e.g.

Little i.e. and e.g. are very popular—and very misused. First, i.e. stands for id est and means "that is" or "in other words." Many people use it regularly to introduce an example and not a rephrasing for clarity. Second, e.g. stands for exempli gratia and means "for example." People use it correctly more often, but still abuse it. I prefer actually saying "in other words" or "for example" depending on which I mean and, if necessary, abbreviating as "ex." Often, no introductory phrase is really needed at all (just put it in parentheses).

ibid.

Ibid. is especially disgusting. It stands for ibidum and means "in the same place." It's really only used in scholarly references to books to make them incomprehensible to anyone but other scholars. All it means is "you can find that in the same book I referenced before." Ibid. is especially bad because it's generally all alone on the reference line, silently mocking the uninitiated with its unnecessary brevity. What need can there possibly be to abbreviate a six-letter word to a four-letter word when it's the only thing on the line? And why not simply put "same" instead? Willful obfuscation, I say. Smoke, mirrors, and mumbo jumbo. Poppycock, balderdash, and rot.

viz.

Viz. stands for videlicet and is particularly grotesque, since the abbreviation changes the spelling for no apparent reason (there's probably some deep, case-related meaning that I care nothing about and which would probably anger me further). Literally, it means "namely." You would use it when you want to sound important and mentioning someone who was appointed to a professorship or fellowship or something. "John J. Grunt University has created a new resident fellowship chair for a particularly distinguished scholar, viz. Doctor Lupus Harchibladt." There's no particularly reason not to just say "namely" or even just use a comma or colon ("...a particularly distinguished scholar: Doctor Lupus Harchibladt"). It's only purpose, therefore, is to put Roman laurals on a German shepherd.

cf. and q.v.

Humble cf. stands for confer. It just means "compare [an outside source]." You could use "compare" or "refer to," but there's really no reason not to write "see" instead. Even if you need to make the distinction between an interior and an exterior reference, the reference itself has to be clear enough to do that. Compare "See Chapter 8: Confessions of a Nestle Chocolate Eater" and "See Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas DeQuincey."

Filthy little q.v. stands for quod vide and means "which see [an inside source]." This is different from cf., but not by much, so it's pretty much worthless. This so obviously should be replaced by "see" that even scholars do it. See cf.

f e e d b a c k

Jason Botwick writes:

Ah, the ravings of unum non compos mentis.

Primus, no self-respecting "word nerd" would profess such disdain for Latin in the lingua franca.

Secondly, there are several reasons to keep Latin alive in our common parlance (abbreviated or not), which the educated reader is no doubt already aware.

Perhaps a less often considered reason for this practice is, una verba, ars gratia artis. While there may be no special reason not to use "see" instead of "q.v.", there is really no special reason not to either--the use of "q.v." is no more sinful than using any other synonym in a given context, unless that context is formally scholarly or official in nature; and for those who enjoy some verbal variety in their reading, a modicum of Latin is but a shake of spice on otherwise bland fare.

Ut humiliter opinor, this piece is nothing more than "ipse dixit" advocacy of the tireless Germanic desire for cold efficiency in all matters, without a substantive argument as to why we should be striving for such efficiency.

I.e., nihil sub sole novum.

Roland Grant responds:

Motorheads can have opinions about whether one motor is better than another. Word nerds have the same privilege with respect to words. I refuse to bow to Romanist fascism!

Since the nearly exclusive purpose of language is communication, anything that gets in the way, like, say, using a different language, is dumb. QED.

I'm not advocating Icelandic-style isolationism. But this is a slippery slope to linguistic internationalism, you know. If Latin is okay, then how about a smattering of French in your morning newspaper? A dash of Greek in your novel? Arabic in your Alpha-Bits? And then—whoa Nelly!—enjoy your crossword puzzle with clues in Chinese!

Jason Botwick retorts:

Hold on, I need to get my red pen.

First of all, Iceland is not isolationist.

Icelanders are famously (among word nerds) linguistically isolationist, and damn proud of it. Also, I note that I didn't get any denials from Icelanders themselves. They're probably too busy adding slashes to their Os. —RG

Second, because just some, or even most people don't understand what "e.g." or "i.e." means, is hardly a good reason to stop using those. I know that deep down you're an elitist, so I'm not going to waste your time explaining this point.

First a logician. Then an elitist! —RG

Third, your slippery slope argument is bogus, as most slippery slope arguments are:

• Whoa Nelly! You better not sprinkle any salt on your hamburger, or next thing you know, we'll be digging our way out of a salt mine!
• Whoa Nelly! If we allow gays to legally marry, the next thing you know, my uncle will want to marry his cat!

Sure. Start deprecating one rhetorical device and pretty soon you'll have invalidated all possible logical devices. Then where will we be? —RG

And your other argument is equally specious. Just because language exists primarily to communicate, it does not follow that anything that delays or even obscures the receiver's apprehension of the sender's message is a bad thing. Communication is a tool, not an end, and sometimes it is enriching, entertaining or humourous to provide an new or alternate route for the receiver to travel in order to fully understand the intended message. In fact, sometimes the route itself is the message. Your argument would obviate a majority of poetry--even poetry that is written completely in English!

Poetry is the obvious, unspoken exception inherent in "nearly exclusive," as well as the silent, darkling whisper in the stumbledown, tumbledown night, like soft rain on a garden scarecrow. —RG

And we could generalize this point to other artistic media, like painting. Abstract art, for example. It is, in some sense, a completely different language than that employed by the early masters, whose symbolism, technique, etc. were much more easily understood. So what's up with that fucking red splotch, and all those paint splatters? Should we trash all those Pollack and Rothko paintings?

Using Latin abbreviations is nothing like admiring Jackson Pollack. Besides, Pollack's Number 18 demonstrates a disdane for Latin not seen since Magritte's The Treason of Images, plus he once punched the pope in the face. As for Rothko, my dog paints better than him. —RG

Geez. Even the Germans like for their function to be adorned with some form. Even they know that substance is boring without a little style. So save your curmudgeonly, paleo-conservative, word-nazi edicts for your next technical bulletin.

You can't praise Germans and then call me a word-nazi. I already praised Germans and called you a Romanist fascist and called no tag backs. —RG

Besides, you better get used to some linguistic internationalism. It's coming whether you like it or not.

s i d e b a r