Open Letter to Steve Jobs
Mr. Jobs,
I like you. You’re a smart guy. You have a good presentation style, and you’re good at working a crowd. There’s just one thing: you don’t know how to pronounce or use the phrase et cetera (etc). There is no “hard C” sound to be found in et cetera. It’s not ECK-cetera, it is ET-cetera. Furthermore, et cetera does not mean “and so forth.” It means “and others.” Your incorrect use and pronunciation of this phrase stands in stark contrast to the rest of your persona.
Sincerely,
Mark Jaquith
P.S. You can delay Leopard if it means there will be Finder improvements.
Amen on the Finder improvements! I’d be happy to wait to pay them more money for an upgrade to most features I don’t need if they’d put in the *one* feature I really need.
I thought I was the only one who noticed the pronunciation. I thought maybe it was just the quality of the sound. Oh well. I guess I heard right after all.
Too funny!
Well, the expression is latin. Most latin based languages such as French do pronounce it like Jobs does.
This said, if the Americans commonly pronounce it otherwise, then Steve and etc. should follow.
I don’t know of any Romance languages that pronounce “et” as “eck” … maybe they do. But in any case, the Latin pronunciation is “et SETera” or “et CHETera,” depending on colloquial or classical pronunciations, and the English pronunciation is the colloquial “et SETera.”
Haha, this was funny.
Steve Jobs, please adjust your pronunciation to the “et SETera” that is suggested above.
Wouldn’t like to lose that perfect image I have of you in my head, haha.
@ Mark
You must have learned church latin. Classical Latin uses a hard k sound for c. Not the wimpy ch- sound that prevails in Italian and church latin. The Romans wouldn’t pronounce c as s as that’s what they had s for.
Indeed I did learn Ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation.