>> Well, I'm going to go _dance with myself_ tonight. And hopefully no
>> dogs...
>
> You know that's a euphemism, right?

I do *now*, obviously. >_<

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Le_Forgeron <lef### [at] freefr> wrote:
> Le 22/06/2011 11:57, Invisible a écrit :
> > For some reason, it really *really* annoys me when people write "i.e."
> > when they /obviously/ meant "e.g."
> >
> > Apparently some people think these mean the same thing.
>
> Oh lucky you! (I agree)
> One thing which annoys me is the usage of the English abbreviation "Mr"
> in the French writing (where it should be "M.")
> It goes everywhere, credit card, cheque ("check" for the other side of
> the pond) and every commercial or business letter.
> It's unfair, as the ladies have the right values (Mlle or Mme, not some
> english Miss or Mrs).
>

But Monsieur also ends in r, like Mister! :D

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> Le_Forgeron<lef### [at] freefr>  wrote:
>> Le 22/06/2011 11:57, Invisible a écrit :
>>> For some reason, it really *really* annoys me when people write "i.e."
>>> when they /obviously/ meant "e.g."
>>>
>>> Apparently some people think these mean the same thing.
>>
>> Oh lucky you! (I agree)
>> One thing which annoys me is the usage of the English abbreviation "Mr"
>> in the French writing (where it should be "M.")
>> It goes everywhere, credit card, cheque ("check" for the other side of
>> the pond) and every commercial or business letter.
>> It's unfair, as the ladies have the right values (Mlle or Mme, not some
>> english Miss or Mrs).
>>
>
> But Monsieur also ends in r, like Mister! :D
>

In French, abbreviations takes the first 1 to 3 consecutive letters 
followed by a dot. They never take the first and last, nor a scattering 
of consonnent picked through the word.

So, for monsieur, if you take 2 letters, it should be Mo.(never used), 
not Mr, and Mon. (also never used) if you were to take 3 letters.



Alain

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On 6/22/2011 2:57, Invisible wrote:
> For some reason, it really *really* annoys me when people write "i.e." when
> they /obviously/ meant "e.g."

It bugs me that one of my bosses would write "qv" when he meant "q.v.", and 
wouldn't let me change it because then he'd have to fix it everywhere in his 
docs.


-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 6/22/2011 5:33, Francois Labreque wrote:
> You know that's a euphemism, right?

Spend some time with a chinese person and you'll realize *everything* in 
English is a euphamism.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> For some reason, it really *really* annoys me when people write "i.e." 
> when they /obviously/ meant "e.g."

> Apparently some people think these mean the same thing.

  Am I only imagining things, or is consistently mixing up "your" and
"you're" more popular today than it was eg. 10 years ago? (The error seems
to happen almost equally in both ways, unlike with "it's" vs. "its", where
it happens almost exclusively on one way.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 22/06/2011 05:02 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 6/22/2011 2:57, Invisible wrote:
>> For some reason, it really *really* annoys me when people write "i.e."
>> when
>> they /obviously/ meant "e.g."
>
> It bugs me that one of my bosses would write "qv" when he meant "q.v.",
> and wouldn't let me change it because then he'd have to fix it
> everywhere in his docs.

I've never heard that one before. Now I have to go look that up...

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On 22-6-2011 11:57, Invisible wrote:
> For some reason, it really *really* annoys me when people write "i.e."
> when they /obviously/ meant "e.g."
>
> Apparently some people think these mean the same thing.

One day we sent in a paper to a journal and used a latin expression 
(mutatis mutandis) that is commonly used in the Netherlands, but perhaps 
not elsewhere, and we didn't realize that.
We got a reviewer that remarked about that that we were deliberately 
'obfuscating' things and that we should never use latin expressions in 
scientific papers. I forgot the exact wording but in telling us so, he 
used both e.g. and i.e. Very funny.

Googling 'e.g.' will give a a page explaining the difference between the 
two abbreviations as the first hit and for 'i.e.' it is the 4th after 
some internet explorer hits. Apparently it is an issue. Can someone 
explain why?

BTW: if other pages turn up first for you:
http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html



-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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On 22-6-2011 18:03, Darren New wrote:
> On 6/22/2011 5:33, Francois Labreque wrote:
>> You know that's a euphemism, right?
>
> Spend some time with a chinese person and you'll realize *everything* in
> English is a euphamism.

like e.g. 'spend time', 'chinese person', and even 'English'?

-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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Am 28.06.2011 23:27, schrieb andrel:

> Googling 'e.g.' will give a a page explaining the difference between the
> two abbreviations as the first hit and for 'i.e.' it is the 4th after
> some internet explorer hits. Apparently it is an issue. Can someone
> explain why?

Because people aren't taught what latin words those abbreviations stand 
for, and/or what those latin words mean?

I could imagine people thinking that "i.e." was an abbreviation of "in 
example" or some such.

I bet part of the problem is that those abbreviations are commonly 
spoken as the two letters, rather than the original words (compare "etc").

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