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From: phipps@fortune.UUCP (Clay Phipps)
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.flame,net.misc
Subject: Re: E.G., I.E., For Example
Message-ID: <3341@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-May-84 02:34:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: fortune.3341
Posted: Thu May 24 02:34:57 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 18-May-84 06:48:37 EDT
References: <3274@fortune.UUCP>
Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA
Lines: 28

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


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