| Thomas Bushnell BSG 2004-09-02, 6:55 pm |
| amacater@galactic.demon.co.uk (Andrew M.A. Cater) writes:
> I suspect that this discussion is becoming off topic for this list 
Awwwww.....you're no fun!
> A lot of this comes down to ideolect - I trained as a lawyer: I wouldn't
> _say_ e.g. as e.g., using "for example" instead though I use it
> extensively. I do, however, say "i.e" as "aye eee" and am always
> understood either at work or at home (and by mathematicians not lawyers
> )
Oh, it's not about whether you are understood. You'll never get good
data in linguistics b
Lots of things are
understood which are never produced by native speakers--especially in
this age of universal literacy. Most Americans and British (not all!)
can understand Elizabethan English well enough, but almost none can
produce it correctly, mangling tenses and moods and such left and
right.
The research I've shows that pronouncing "e.g." the same as "for
example" is almost universal, but there are some who say "i.e." by
spelling the letters (as you do). Still, far more people say "that
is" and never say "eye ee"--and still the considerable majority when
reading written text that says "i.e." read it as "that is".
How do you read "viz.", by the way?
> I had to stop for a moment and think hard - you dropped Peter
> Abelard's name as if he were a current contributor to the list
Well, he's the subject of my doctoral research....
Thomas
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