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On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 12:03 PM, Peter Humphrey <peter@××××××××××××.uk> wrote: |
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> |
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> I've been seeing some confusion recently about the abbreviations e.g. and |
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> i.e. Their meanings are: |
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> |
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> E.g. Exempli gratia - Latin for "for the sake of example"; |
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> I.e. Id est - Latin for "that is". |
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> |
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Well, as long as we're explaining grammar, I'll elaborate a tiny bit |
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more since a lot of people (including native English speakers) get |
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these wrong. |
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e.g is used when giving one example when many could have used. An |
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example: "Some people in life suffer misfortunes, e.g. having a |
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meteor land on their house." This is just one example of a misfortune |
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somebody could suffer, and there are many other unstated misfortunes. |
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Indeed, instead of saying "An example" in the previous sentence I |
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could have actually started it with, "e.g." I figured that would make |
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the example more confusion which would defeat the purpose. |
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i.e. is used when restating something in different words. An example: |
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"Gentoo is a Linux distribution, i.e. a collection of software based |
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on the Linux kernel that is published as a single maintained work." |
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The second part of the sentence is a definition of "Linux |
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distribution" - the definition isn't just one of many examples - it is |
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a description of all Linux distributions. |
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-- |
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Rich |