i.e. vs. e.g.

[John Baldwin]

On Thursday 09 September 2004 03:51 am, Ceri Davies wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 06:27:13PM -0600, Warren Block wrote:
> > On Wed, 8 Sep 2004, Ceri Davies wrote:
> > >Apologies in advance for coming over all schoolmaster like, but I've
> > >noticed a few instances where I believe that people are confusing the
> > >terms "i.e." and "e.g.", and so here's a little reminder/summary:
> > >
> > >	i.e. can be read as "that is to say".
> > >
> > >	e.g. can be read as "for example".
> >
> > The FDP says to avoid contractions.  Maybe these should be avoided in
> > the same way.
>
> I think that would be overkill, and if we stopped doing things that we
> did wrong occasionally then there wouldn't be much of FreeBSD left ;-)
>
> I was "just saying" really.

The reason for avoiding contractions though is to avoid confusing non-native 
readers, and I think that that's a good argument for spelling out i.e. as 
"that is", and e.g. as "for example" as well unless this type of idiom is 
common to more than just English.

-- 
John Baldwin <jhb at FreeBSD.org>  <><  http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve"  =  http://www.FreeBSD.org