grw@fortune.UUCP (Glenn Wichman) (05/10/84)
[If no one reads this line, does it exist?]
Well, the votes are in on the full form of e.g., and here they are:
exempli gratia 4 votes
exempli gratis 2 votes
exempla gratia 1 vote
exemplaria gratis 1 vote
exemplo gratia 1 vote
exemplo gratiae 1 vote
The literal translation of the phrase is either "by way of example",
"free example", or "example, thanks", depending on to whom you listen.
I'm sure you were all eager to see this.
Yet still no cute signoff message
-Glennglass@houxf.UUCP (K.GLASS) (05/11/84)
I always though e.g. stood for E-GADS, as in: Our Federal spending is well apportioned, e.g. our defense budget is the highest it's ever been. Ken Glass houxf!glass
richard@sequent.UUCP (05/19/84)
My Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 8th ed, says:
e.g. /(')e-`je/ abbr [L exempli gratia] for example
i.e. /(')i-`e/ abbr [L id est] that is
Amazingly, my Webster's New World Dictionary, College Edition, 1959, agrees:
e.g., exempli gratia, [L.], for the sake of example; for example.
i.e., id est, [L.], that is.
____________________________________________________________________________
The preceding is the official opinion of Merriam-Webster and The World
Publishing Companies. The author has no deeply held opinion on the subject.
Q.E.F., quod erat faciedum, [L.], which was to be done.
...!sequent!richardphipps@fortune.UUCP (Clay Phipps) (05/24/84)
The abbreviation "e.g." stands for "exempli gratia".
It would greatly help the credibility of some of those responding
to Glenn's posting to be able to spell the Latin words correctly.
The phrase seems to have been idiomatic even in Classical Latin times
(it appears in my *Cassell's Compact Latin Dictionary*, which deals only
with classical Latin, with the alternate conventional English meaning:
"for instance"). It seems to translate most literally [a quick guess only]
to "for example's sake" or "for sake of example", as Barbara Horton wrote.
"Exempli" is apparently the genitive (=possessive) singular of "exemplum, -i",
and means "example", "sample", "model", or "object-lesson", thus "of example".
"Gratia" is the ablative singular of "gratia, -ae", which in this context
literally means "favor" or "service". The ablative case is one that Latin
uses for a lot of special purposes (without prepositions); this usage
looks like a variation on "ablative of agent". It is the ablative plural,
"gratiis" or "gratis", not the singular, that means "free".
The phrase "exempli causa" has the same meaning as "exempli gratia",
but I've never seen "e.c." used to mean anything other than
"engineering change" :-).
-- Clay Phipps
--
{cbosgd decvax!decwrl!amd70 harpo hplabs!hpda ihnp4 sri-unix ucbvax!amd70}
!fortune!phipps