X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f996b,ef84650dd3e606e5 X-Google-Attributes: gidf996b,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-10-18 01:49:30 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!212.88.64.227!sonofon.dk!newsrouter.euroconnect.net!newsfeed.song.fi!news.cc.tut.fi!uutiset.saunalahti.fi!not-for-mail From: Ilmari Karonen Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Re: what is it? Date: 18 Oct 2001 08:49:12 GMT Organization: (dis)Order of the Holy Spoon (or whatever) Lines: 19 Message-ID: <1003394684.2386@itz.pp.sci.fi> References: <3BC7137B.20402@usa.net> <9qclsj$moe3s$3@ID-39741.news.dfncis.de> <3BCE4670.9080009@usa.net> Reply-To: Ilmari Karonen NNTP-Posting-Host: simpukka.saunalahti.fi X-Trace: tron.sci.fi 1003394952 20258 195.74.0.20 (18 Oct 2001 08:49:12 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@saunalahti.fi NNTP-Posting-Date: 18 Oct 2001 08:49:12 GMT User-Agent: postit.pl 0.05 Xref: archiver1.google.com alt.ascii-art:8632 In article <3BCE4670.9080009@usa.net>, Peter Henderson wrote: >Peter Punk wrote: >> It is an acronym, and if an acronym is pronouncable as a regular word, people >> usually will pronounce it as a word. >> Some examples are NATO, NAFTA, UNESCO, ASCII, etcetera. > >Actually, et cetera is two words. It comes from Latin, literally, "and >(the) rest." (The is in () because Latin doesn't have articles. Articles >are "the" "a" and "an.") So et cetera is not an acronym. Technically it I don't think he meant it was an acronym, I think he was just indicating that there are more examples than the ones listed. See what ambiguous quoting can cause? :-) Anyway, thanks for the explanation. -- . _, .. j u s t. h o w l.i n g i n .t h e n.i g h t .. ._, . , )'' . /\_ . ' ,/\ . , ``( , _\__/ |__.'\._______,--;_'_`-.___,.______,/_,_`.__,-.__'__,/`-._,_| \____ ,_f_)\. Ilmari Karonen iltzu@sci.fi http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/ /(_|_,.