The language of acadaemia

Growing up, there were two newspaper columns I read on a regular basis: Dave Barry’s delightfully witty (and Pulitzer-winning) humor pieces, and “On Language,” William Safire’s insightful coverage of popular etymology. I often try to mimic the former — always falling woefully short — but occasionally I like to depart from my usual unfocused ranting on The Daily Princetonian’s Opinion page to pay homage to the latter. That’s why today, you’re not getting a column inspired by the article about the online comment thread in response to the article about this year’s admission statistics. (I’ll pause momentarily while you figure out what’s going on in that sentence.) No, today we talk of Latin and ligature.

First up battin’: the Latin. I must first admit that I have never studied the language and thus have minimal knowledge of its usage, history and grammatical constructs. Luckily that’s not a problem, as I’m concerned here with the Latin which we speakers of English have appropriated and abbreviated, those little constructs we use every day (often incorrectly). Things like “i.e.,” “e.g.,” “vs.,” etc. Oh, and “etc.,” that’s another one.

Most of these little letter groupings pop up in academia like prairie dogs across the plains, in journals, dissertations and encyclopedias (or “encyclopaedias” — more on that later). This practice began ca. (hey, there’s another one!) some year I will look up later, when the intellectual community traded Latin for the vernacular but retained many already-familiar abbreviations. Any Princeton student will recognize bibliography mainstays like “ibid.,” short for “ibidem” (“in the same place”), or “et al.,” from “et alii” (“and others”). Similar special-purpose terms include “q.v.” (“quod videre”) and “cf.” (“confer”), exhorting the reader to look up a reference elsewhere in the volume (and in the latter case, to compare it with the current subject), and the mathematical coda “Q.E.D.” reminding us of that which was to be demonstrated.

You typically won’t encounter these characters in everyday writing, but a few have found their way into novels, newspapers, blogs, e-mails and occasionally even spoken conversation. Of these, “i.e.” has become ubiquitous and indispensible, which is rather odd. After all, as an abbreviation of “id est,” it cuts out a mere three letters — nothing compared to the economy of trimming down “quod erat demonstrandum” into a nice, concise acronym. I’m particularly baffled when I hear it spoken, in which case it’s nothing but a slightly more esoteric substitute for “that is,” also two syllables. Nonetheless, the meaning and usage of “i.e.” seem to be universally understood. Sadly, the same cannot be said for its equally popular relative “e.g.,” a shortcut for “exempli gratia,” which is used in place of “for example” yet for some reason is often confused with “i.e.”

And now that I’ve discussed the rest of them, it’s time to move on to “the rest of them.” “Et caetera,” that is, meaning “and the rest [of such things].” “Etc.,” as we know it, appears in our daily speech constantly, perhaps too much. Though it was originally intended to indicate the continuation of an extensive list, it now seems synonymous with “I am too lazy to finish this thought,” yet another culprit in the culture of three-letter memes. (E.g., “omg how could Princeton suck so bad wtf they let in too many people etc.”) Also, it is absolutely unnecessary to repeat it multiple times, as is often done — I’m looking at you, Yul Brynner in “The King and I.”

One last thing: Notice that the traditional spelling of “et caetera” uses the elusive “ae” (rendered here in typeface as two separate letters but properly written as a ligature — a typographical combination of two symbols — called “aesc”). Latin words often use this following a soft “c,” as in “caesar” and “caesura” (the proper name for the musical symbol, commonly known as “railroad tracks,” indicating a grand pause). But despite its Latin legacy, “et caetera” is typically spelled “et cetera” nowadays, having lost the “ae” in favor of a simple “e” like many modern words: “encyclopaedia,” “mediaeval,” “leukaemia” and “aethereal.” Only a lucky few, such as “archaeology,” “aesthetic” and “aerie” (an eagle’s nest), retain the construct, broken down into two letters rather than kept as a single glyph.

Of course, some extremely pretentious (or British) types resist these spelling changes and continue to write “orthopaedic,” “haemoglobin” or even “praemium.” I personally prefer the archaic spelling in some cases — I’m also a fan of the related “oe,” as in “manoeuvre.” But I’m not denouncing or advocating spelling reform: I’m merely trying to inform. Thus I hope you enjoyed this column, even if it was at times a bit … well … paedagogical.

Brandon Lowden is an electrical engineering major from McKees Rocks, Pa. He can be reached at blowden@princeton.edu.