i.e. vs e.g. is driving me insane

Gaaah.

i.e. means "that is", not "for example". That's what e.g. is for.

It's a stupid little thing, but I'm seeing it over and over and it looks ignorant, which just hurts my belief in a writer's authority. That's surely not what any of us want.

I'm not a prescriptivist, rilly, but words are our tools. Surely we should use them with care and awareness?

I know it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things and most people don't even know and we understand from context anyway, but it's fingernails on chalkboard to me.




'kay. Done being cranky. I'll go to bed now.

HeronW said:

I always use ex. for example.

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Granted, ex. is more sane than either of them when nobody in the discourse is a Latin speaker

I do remember from science that Pb stands for lead, not peanut butter.

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Sadly there is no J.

It's not really this one nitpick that's driving me up the wall. It's part of a larger annoyance. People who use words or abbreviations without knowing what they mean, and never think to look them up. People who are ignorant of the genre they're writing in, and claim it's because there's 'nothing interesting' written in that genre. People who think editors and critiquers exist to deal with their sloppy grammar (as opposed to people who are trying but have actual problems there). People who make 'facts' up and get angry when other people step in to say "Uh, no, that's not true".

They all make me think, "If you can't take your writing seriously enough to put time and effort into it, why should I?"

Maybe I just need a break. Or maybe a nap

MeowGirl said:

Lemme guess. You're reading the same thread that I am?

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I think I've seen it on three threads just today.

"In other words" is another translation, I think. What it actually means is in Latin Your usage is right, so thank you, you're giving me sanity points back </gamergeek>

Of all those, lay/lie is actually a dialectal difference, so I'm forgiving of it. The rest.... just.... nnnnnggggg.

Oh, and another thing. Pluralizing with 's. Five hundred chicken's crossed fifty street's and if shweta's head exploded how many shweta's shared that head?

Shadow_Ferret said:

Hmm. All this time I thought i.e. meant, "in effect."

And I thought e.g. meant "example given."

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Oh, I like those as mnemonics.

I never get et alia wrong. That's because this is the first time I've ever heard of it.

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I see it most often in academic citations (e.g. Glenberg et al. (1987))

James81 said:

Isn't "that is" and "for example" essentially the same thing?

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No.

Consider: "The set of even numbers, that is, 2, 4, and 6" versus "The set of even numbers, for example 2, 4, and 6". These are very different clauses. If I say "even numbers, i.e. (that is) 2, 4, 6" I am saying that 8. 10, 12, etc are not even numbers.

i.e. means that the category consists of only the entities I mentioned. That the two are interchangeable; the list is only a clarification. This is very different from saying that entities mentioned are examples of a category.

So, a writing example. If I say "I like fantasy writers, e.g. Tolkien and Dunsany", they are examples of fantasy writers. If I say "I like fantasy writers, i.e. Tolkien and Dunsany", I am saying that there are no other fantasy writers.

Shadow_Ferret said:

Oh! Et Al!

Didn't know it was et alia. Yes. I've seen that now. I always thought it meant "and all" and you used it instead of listing everyone who worked on something.

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Yeah, I didn't actually realize till today that it means "and others", rather than "and all"

I was going to direct you to MeowGirl's post but she deleted it
ETA: Ha! MeowGirl, you keep giving the nice succinct answers while I natter on

Okay, I'll try once more and if I still make no sense, blame the insomnia, and maybe someone else will make sense.

i.e. means "these two are the same thing". A good phrasing for this is "in other words".

e.g. means "this is an example of that other thing". When you use e.g. there may be other examples that you don't mention.

So.
Correct: Novels can come in many genres, e.g. mystery, historical, science fiction.

In this example, "mystery, historical, science fiction" are just examples of genres. I'm not claiming that romance doesn't exist, or fantasy, or literary fiction, or mainstream, or cyber punk or monkeypunk or what have you.

Wrong:Novels can come in many genres, i.e. mystery, historical, science fiction.

Consider this paraphrase:
Novels can come in many genres, that is, mystery, historical, science fiction.
Or this one:
Novels can come in many genres, in other words, mystery, historical, science fiction.

These are all claiming that nothing exists other than mystery, historicals, and science fiction.
Which is, well, silly.



Now.
Suppose you're writing a novel, and someone says "How come you're just making stuff up there?"

You could say:
correct: "I'm writing a novel, i.e. fiction.
incorrect: "I'm writing a novel, e.g. fiction.

The first means: A novel is fiction. That's why I get to make things up. "A novel, in other words fiction."
The second means, fiction is just an example of novels. You could have non-fiction novels too.

Clearer?

James81 said:

No, what I meant was "You lost me on how the average reader is really going to differentiate the two in such detail."

My voice was that of the average reader, which probably doesn't make the distinction between the two at all.

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The people I know can tell the difference between examples and equivalence.