Month: July 2008

“et al”

Abbreviations, Common English Blunders, Foreign Languages

I saw this yesterday in an online news story.

Problem:
A period is missing.

Explanation:
There are three Latin phrases that mean and others:

  • et alii — spelled E-T followed by A-L-I-I — which is masculine;
  • et aliae — spelled E-T followed by A-L-I-A-E — which is feminine;
  • et alia — spelled E-T followed by A-L-I-A — which is neuter.

The correct abbreviation of any of the three Latin words for “others” requires a period after A-L.

An example of proper use is “the report presented by Jones et al.” (notice the period after A-L).

Solution:
“et al.”

“… which reflects back to our customers.”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Self-negation

I saw this in a presentation to customer-support personnel.

Problem:
The word “back” is redundant in this expression.

Explanation:
The expression was part of advice to customer-support personnel:

“Come to work with a smile on your face! That smile then brightens everyone’s day[,] which reflects back to our customers. A smile goes a long way over the phone when providing Best in Class Service.”

The “re” in “reflect” means back. Therefore, one could argue that a “reflects back” action would never reach the intended recipient.

Solution:
“… which reflects to our customers.”
OR, even better, given the full sentence,
“… which is transmitted to our customers.”

“Bouillon” vs. “Bullion”

Common English Blunders, Mispronunciations, Misspellings, Nouns, Versus

I saw each of these words in the past week and wondered about their origins.

Problem:
These two nouns are not synonyms but look so similar that some people will mistakenly use one of the nouns when they should use the other noun.

Explanation:
The noun “bouillon” — spelled B-O-U-I-L-L-O-N — means a clear broth made from straining water in which meat has been cooked. This noun dates back to the mid-sixteen-hundreds and is derived from the French verb that means to boil.

The noun “bullion” — spelled B-U-L-L-I-O-N — means silver or gold considered in mass (for example, in bars) instead of in value. This noun dates back to the mid-thirteen-hundreds and also can trace its origin to the word for boiling or bubbling — as in a melted mass of silver or gold.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following mistaken phrases (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “chicken bullion” — 18,300 matches
  • “beef bullion” — 14,700 matches
  • “gold bouillon” — 3,510 matches
  • “silver bouillon” — 1,280 matches

I call these “mistaken phrases” because I combined two words that should not go together based on the definitions of bullion and bouillon. These results tell me that Web authors are worse at properly naming their broths than they are at properly naming their masses of gold and silver.

Solution:
Use “bouillon” when referring to broth. Use “bullion” when referring to gold or silver.