Author: Kirk

“…, and etcetera.”

Common English Blunders, Nouns, Redundancies

I heard this during a telephone call yesterday.

Problem:
The phrase is redundant.

Explanation:
The noun “etcetera” — abbreviated as “etc.” — means and other unspecified things of the same type or class.

So “and etcetera” literally means and and other unspecified things of the same type or class.

For fun, I searched Google for “and etcetera” (including the quotation marks) and found about 67,200 matches.

Suspecting that this was only part of the story, I then searched Google for “and etc.” (including the quotation marks) and found about 9,280,000 matches.

Combining the matches for the abbreviated and unabbreviated forms, that’s over 9.3 million matches for this redundant phrase!

Solution:
“…, etcetera.”

“Dutties”

Misspellings, Nouns

My wife saw this on a sign in a high-school attendance office.

Problem:
The noun is misspelled.

Explanation:
The sign directed the student assistants in the office to pay attention to their responsibilities.

You might have to say this aloud a few times to get it.

The sign writer meant “Duties” when she wrote “Dutties” instead.

I believe that the writer saw nothing wrong with the misspelling, given that “Dutties” was in a one-inch font on the sign.

What’s sad is that this appeared on an official sign in a high school. Either nobody saw the misspelled word, or nobody had the nerve to tell someone in the attendance office about it.

Solution:
“Duties”

“Mingaling”

Verbs

My wife saw this on a sign in a high-school attendance office.

Problem:
The verb is a horrible corruption of a good one.

Explanation:
The sign directed visitors in the office to not congregate there.

You might have to say this aloud a few times to get it.

The sign writer meant “mingling” when she wrote “mingaling” instead.

I believe that the writer hears three syllables when she or others (mis)pronounce the correct verb.

So she spelled it phonetically and got “mingaling” — hilarious, if it weren’t so sad!

Solution:
“Mingling”