On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 12:03 PM, Peter Humphrey <pe...@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote: > > I've been seeing some confusion recently about the abbreviations e.g. and > i.e. Their meanings are: > > E.g. Exempli gratia - Latin for "for the sake of example"; > I.e. Id est - Latin for "that is". >
Well, as long as we're explaining grammar, I'll elaborate a tiny bit more since a lot of people (including native English speakers) get these wrong. e.g is used when giving one example when many could have used. An example: "Some people in life suffer misfortunes, e.g. having a meteor land on their house." This is just one example of a misfortune somebody could suffer, and there are many other unstated misfortunes. Indeed, instead of saying "An example" in the previous sentence I could have actually started it with, "e.g." I figured that would make the example more confusion which would defeat the purpose. i.e. is used when restating something in different words. An example: "Gentoo is a Linux distribution, i.e. a collection of software based on the Linux kernel that is published as a single maintained work." The second part of the sentence is a definition of "Linux distribution" - the definition isn't just one of many examples - it is a description of all Linux distributions. -- Rich
