Duane Smith has shared fragments from a “Lexicon of Scholarly Usage” that he remembers encountering at some point. Some of these “definitions” are priceless.
•“et al.” = “plus some people I’ve never heard of,” or, in some contexts, “my co-authors.”
•“apud” = “I’m too lazy to fine the original so I’ll quote it from someone else.”
•“passim” = “I have some vague memory of the author discussing this elsewhere in his or her book”
•“As I have demonstrated elsewhere” = “Please read my previous paper on a different subject.”
•“c.f.” = “You look it up, I didn’t have time.”
•“e.g.” = “not quite supported by”
•“etc” = “there may be other examples but I can’t find any.”
•“i.e.” = “or as I should have said in the first place”
•“It has long been known” = “I think”
•“It is well established” = “Those who think what I think agree with me”
•“Most scholars agree” see “It has long been known”
•“scholarly consensus” = “group think”
And for those working on articles likely to contain such shorthand, Marc Cortez shares some advice for academic writers from Inside Higher Education.
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