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#1
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Allow spelling and grammar to understand the phrase "et. al."
The verbiage "et. al.," meaning "and others" or "among others," is common use
in academic literature. Word's spelling and grammar checker appears to have absolutely no recognition for this. "et.al." returns a spelling mistake, and "et. al." (the more appropriate way) returns two grammar errors, and also attempts to autocorrect the "al." to "Al." Appropriate usage would be to cite an author and his or her colleagues, such as "In a study by Briggs-Gowan, et. al. (1996), the authors...". When a citation enclosure with date does not appear, it is correct to include the comma immediately following the period which follows "al." ---------------- This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then click "I Agree" in the message pane. http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...ocmanagemen t |
#2
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FWIW, neither "et.al" nor "et. al." is correct. The correct spelling is "et
al." (since "et" is a complete word, not an abbreviation). I do not get a spelling error when typing "et al." Moreover, since "al." is one of Word's built-in exceptions, I don't get an AutoCorrect action (capitalization) after it. I would, however, expect to get an AutoCorrect after "et.," since this is not one of the default exceptions (nor would it be a valid entry). -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "Robert Paveza" wrote in message ... The verbiage "et. al.," meaning "and others" or "among others," is common use in academic literature. Word's spelling and grammar checker appears to have absolutely no recognition for this. "et.al." returns a spelling mistake, and "et. al." (the more appropriate way) returns two grammar errors, and also attempts to autocorrect the "al." to "Al." Appropriate usage would be to cite an author and his or her colleagues, such as "In a study by Briggs-Gowan, et. al. (1996), the authors...". When a citation enclosure with date does not appear, it is correct to include the comma immediately following the period which follows "al." ---------------- This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then click "I Agree" in the message pane. http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...ocmanagemen t |
#3
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Robert Paveza wrote:
The verbiage "et. al.," meaning "and others" or "among others," is common use in academic literature. Word's spelling and grammar checker appears to have absolutely no recognition for this. "et.al." returns a spelling mistake, and "et. al." (the more appropriate way) returns two grammar errors, and also attempts to autocorrect the "al." to "Al." Appropriate usage would be to cite an author and his or her colleagues, such as "In a study by Briggs-Gowan, et. al. (1996), the authors...". When a citation enclosure with date does not appear, it is correct to include the comma immediately following the period which follows "al." Hi Robert, You'll solve more than half the problem by removing the incorrect period after "et". The expression "et al." is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase "et alii" meaning "and others" (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=et%20al.). Because "et" isn't being abbreviated, it doesn't take a period. The grammar checker does still complain about a period followed by a comma, but you can easily ignore that. Maybe a future version will recognize abbreviations as exceptions to that rule. -- Regards, Jay Freedman Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org |
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