Hello,
On Thu, Feb 05, 2004 at 01:09:29AM +0100, Josip Rodin wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 10:20:18AM +0100, Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
> > Package: dpkg
> > Version: 1.10.18
> > Severity: minor
> >
> > Last line of man md5sum
> > Lankester et al 29th November 1995 MD5SUM(1)
> >
> > It has to be "et al." (with a dot), because et is latin for and, and
> > al. is the latin abbreviation for others.
>
> WordNet explicitely accepts both with and without the period, and
> Merriam-Webster doesn't even mention the period...
But you can see there, that it is clearly an abbreviation, so why
should a dot be missing?
Also the Oxford dictionary
http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/oald/
clearly set a "."
Other sources, e.g. dict.leo.org also use it with a ".".
Furhtermore if you try to submit papers to the American physical
society, you are asked to supply the "." after et al., see
http://publish.aps.org/STYLE/grammar.html#punct
They do not list et al. explicitly, but use it in several examples and
refer to "Nicholson's Dictionary of American-English Usage" as
reference, to which I unfortunately do not have access at the moment
(though I can check our library later if you want).
Why I don't want to discredit Merriam-Websters, why should there be
*no* "." behind al?
Greetings
Helge
--
Helge Kreutzmann, Dipl.-Phys. Helge.Kreutzmann@itp.uni-hannover.de
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