-er. When er is added to most adjectives, it creates their comparative degree The cat is fat, but the dog is fatter See
comparison.-est. The particle or suffix est is added to
adjectives to form their
superlative degree of comparison
All the Himalayas are high, but Everest is the highest mountain of all.”
Et al. This partial
abbreviation of the
Latin words “et alia” means and others”
(usually people. Like most such Latinisms, it can be used in academic or very formal prose without much chance of reader incomprehension or distaste. But even in the
“highest”
styles, “et al.” and similar Latinisms are best avoided and replaced by the equivalent English phrase or a clearer and more explicit statement of what is being abbreviated.
The proper place for “et al.,” if anywhere, is in endnotes and footnotes rather than in text. In notes it indicates that other people
were involved in the writing, editing,
or production of a text Dalton, et al.,
Style: A Handbook.”Although “et al.” comes from the Latin, it is not treated as a foreign phrase
and so appears in regular, or
Roman, type rather than being underlined or put in
italics. Be careful not to put a
period after the “et,” but always have one after the “al.”
Etc. This
abbreviation of the
Latin words “et cetera” stands for and soon This is perhaps
the most overused abbreviation, often being a written version of the hems,
haws, and pauses that dot our speech. Such interruptions of your train of thought communicate little or nothing to your
audience except the fact that you probably haven’t given enough thought to what you want to say and are lling the gaps in your ideas with meaningless things like “etc.”
Replacing etc with and soon gets you out of the
trap of overly formal style,
but it doesn’t add much to your weak statement. In short, see etc as a signal that you need to go back and rethink, revise, and amplify what you are saying.
Share with your friends: 
