RIP eg, ie and etc. Henceforth the three abbreviated Latin phrases – which stand for exempli gratia (for the sake of example), id est (that is) and et cetera (and the rest) – will stop being used on Britain’s .gov.uk websites. Eventually they will be replaced in toto by English alternatives such as such as, that is, and so on and so on.
Persis Howe of the Government Digital Service announced the change in a blog. Prima facie, you’d think this was simple dumbing down, but Howe did claim a practical reason. “We’ve found that several programs that read webpages for those with visual impairment read ‘eg’ incorrectly,” she explained. They just say “egg”, much to the amusement of the visually impaired.
The GDS works under the banner of “plain English”, which is a noble cause. While there is something rather magnificent about Sir John Chilcot and an unnamed spy chatting in quotes from the Aeneid during the Iraq Inquiry, to most of us this stuff is incomprehensible. Worse, it gives the impression that if you want to get anywhere in Britain you have to be able to smile convincingly when someone says “Tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore”.
However, I do wonder whether Howe and her colleagues ought to think about adding a de minimis rule to the government style guide. I don’t doubt their bona fides. Clearly, in these turbulent times, it is important work to stop blind people sniggering at official documents, but there is also such a thing as fiddling about for the sake of it. When English speakers use words from Latin, or any other language, they become – ipso facto – English words. The GDS style guide does not ban CV or alias or alibi or 6am or 9pm, for the good reason that it would be ridiculous. The existence of an English alternative to eg does not make it de facto plainer. It just makes more work for the government’s style monitors. “Cui bono?” I am tempted to ask.
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