What do you think of the practice of actually saying ‘i.e.’, ‘e.g.’ and ‘aka’ in conversation instead of ‘that is/namely’, ‘for example’ and ‘also known as’?

Also, are viz and ie interchangeable semantically?

I don’t know that I think anything of it, but I’ve certainly done it.  Unless you mentally read them in translation (seeing “i.e.” and thinking “that is,” exactly as you see 2 and think “two"), they’re just lexical items like any other.  Why wouldn’t you use them in speech?  (Assuming, of course, you’re talking with someone likely to be familiar with them.)

I recall Fowler, in his MEU, condemning those who would pronounce viz as, well, viz, going on to tell us that the z was not a z, etc. Pronounce, came the magisterial dictum, as videlicet, or namely. My youthful pedantic self lapped it up. Now, older and wiser, I pronounce it viz, and to hell with the consequences!

This blogger differentiates ie and viz thus:

Viz., rather confusingly, abbreviates “videlicet”, meaning something like “that is to say”.  In writing it is used a lot like a colon, to begin a list of examples.  It’s a lot like “i.e.” in this respect, but viz. is never used to introduce a definition.  Unlike e.g., a list introduced by viz. must be comprehensive.

Any substance to this ‘never used to introduce a definition’?

MW3 says “viz.” means “namely”. That’s all.

MW3 gives several pronunciations/readings: “namely”, “viz” per se, and “videlicet” (with multiple pronunciations given for the last, including ones conforming to Classical Latin with /w/ for “v”, /k/ for “c").

“videlicet” (with multiple pronunciations given for the last, including ones conforming to Classical Latin with /w/ for “v”, /k/ for “c").

Man, I don’t understand the craze for pronouncing absolutely everything as though it were the first century BC.  Fine, if you’re reading Cicero pronounce it as Cicero would, but what the hell is the point of taking Latin words and phrases that have been used in English for centuries and carefully reproducing reconstructed ancient pronunciation?  If you say “wi-DAY-li-ket” you might as well say “et KIGH-teh-rah” too, and that’s just silly.  And KIGH-sahr for Caesar, for that matter.  Excuse me, waiter, I’ll have the Kigh-sahr salad!  Madness, I tell you, madness.

/rant

Where are you Mr. Chips?

But anybody who wants to can pronounce victim as weak-team, and Cincinnati as kinky-natty.

My old scoutmaster always used to pronounce veni, vidi, vici “We’re having a weenie roast in the weeds next week.”

aldiboronti - 19 May 2007 10:45 AM

I recall Fowler, in his MEU, condemning those who would pronounce viz as, well, viz, going on to tell us that the z was not a z, etc.

Well, what was it then?  One of these defunct letters like thorn?

OED:

The z represents the ordinary med.L. symbol of contraction for et or -et. For the various forms in which the abbreviation occurs in med.L. manuscripts, see Chassant Dict. des Abréviations and Cappelli Dizionario di Abbreviature. In reading aloud usually rendered by ‘namely’.

Excuse me, waiter, I’ll have the Kigh-sahr salad!  Madness, I tell you, madness.

Even more so since the salad is named not after a Roman emperor, but after a Mexican chef, viz. Caesar Cardini, who ran the Hotel Caesars in Tijuana and invented the recipe in 1924. (Tijuana was a fashionable destination back in the Prohibition days.)

Interestingly enough, the Christian Science Monitor has an article on the word, viz., videlicet, right here.

P.S. Legalese is a beautiful language; on a court summons I was once issued were the words ‘to-wit’.

Thanks, Thews for that link, which led me to a piece by Larry Trask, whom I’d only just met somewhere else on the ‘net.  I can’t say I agree with him, though.  As far as I am concerned, I pronounce pronounceable abbreviations, like viz, i.e. or e.g. as they are written and unpronounceable ones, like Mr, ltd or etc as their long form, i.e. Mister, limited or et cetera (the exception being Ms, which doesn’t have a long form).  Also there seems to be no reason why we should have etc pronounced “et cetera” and viz as “namely” and not have etc pronounced as “and the rest” and viz as “videlicet”.

This thread reminds me of a comment I once “heard” on IRC: “You know you’re spending too much time on IRC when someone in real life tells you a joke and your response is to say “L-O-L”

Reminds me of a typesetter we used to have on a magazine I still work on. Francis the typesetter used to cut writers’ prose and use abbreviations to such an extent to fit the text to the page, that one of his more prolix victims among the contributors nicknamed him ‘Fran the Abb’. He is known as that to this day.

Was Fran the Abb made from low-quality wool?