Wow that’s a lot of periods.
The dude and I puzzle over a lot of things. But nothing gets as much play in our house as questions about language. The dude is a linguist in the “studies language and its structure” sense, and I’m probably more or less a linguist in the “person skilled in foreign languages” sense, and together you would not believe the stuff we can wonder about. That is, of course, when we’re not wondering about other important things like why all the american candy tastes worse out here or why SYTYCD refuses to put their show on iTunes.
Recently it came to our attention that we didn’t officially know the difference between i.e. and e.g. I’m not sure why we talked about it for twenty minutes before looking it up, but we did. And we still hadn’t figured it just right.
I’m guessing we’re not the only ones, so today I’m offering you this priceless piece of language nerditry for the bargain price of free-ninety-nine. (Yes, we also make up our own words. All the time.) Don’t even play like you’re not going to love me forever for this one.
I.e. and E.g. in Simple Terms
Both of these confusions are abbreviations for Latin expressions:
- I.e. is short for (roughly) “that is to say” or “in other words”
- E.g. is short for “for example”
(In English, “for example” seems short enough to me , but if you look up the Latin, you’ll see why they wanted to niptuck that biz.)
I use Mignon Fogerty’s memory trick, so I’m just going to quote it directly. Incidentally, her article on this topic is quite thorough. If you’re looking for more details than I’m giving here, definitely check it out.
Here’s how she puts it:
…here’s how I remember the difference. Forget about i.e. standing for “that is” or whatever it really means in Latin. From now on, i.e., which starts with i, means “in other words,†and e.g., which starts with e, means “for example.†I = in other words. E= example.
There you have it. i.e. = in other words. e.g. = for example
What terms or expressions do you wonder about? I wanna know!
This is so funny – I researched this topic earlier this year because I too was wondering what the difference was. Clearly I have seen both misused a time or two…and I might be guilty of having misused them myself! Affect vs. effect used to trip me up, but I have gotten a handle on it now 🙂
bianca recently posted..dried cherry almond scones
Oh yeah, I’m sure I’ve misused this a bazillion times before I finally looked it up. And ditto with affect/effect! Though the latter took me quite a bit longer to get the hang of. That one will definitely make an appearance on here sooner than later 🙂
How interesting! How funny! I was geared up for a discussion on Emotional Quotient vs. Intelligence Quotient!
Oh how funny. Well, the dude is the one who gets E.Q. points around here, for sure. I’ll take I.Q., though!