Talk:Viz.

Proposed deletion
In principle I agree that this article should be moved to the Wiktionary. However, the way it has been done now we would lose the interesting and relevant discussion below on the spelling with or without a period, along with all other discussions.

Moreover, it is transwikied to Viz but should be merged with the lower-case viz. including the period.

Therefore, I'm removing the prod tag. As soon as the issues above get fixed I think we should prod it again. --EnOreg (talk) 14:30, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Examples/Lists
The first paragraph says 'viz.' is often used to begin lists. It also says 'viz.' is not appropriate for introducing examples. What might be in this list if not examples? 199.89.175.12 05:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC) Ventifact


 * I've added a cite of the AHD which specifically says "abbr. viz. That is; namely. Used to introduce examples, lists, or items."  I've removed the assertion that examples are not appropriate.  That said, a list need not be of examples: it could be a complete enumeration rather than just some illustrative members of a larger set. The Benjamin Franklin quote given in the article is an example of this. jnestorius(talk) 01:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Obsolete?
Someone ought to tell the British press.... --bodnotbod 23:22, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Videlicet and et
I'm not sure what symbols you guys are looking at, but the Tironian note for "et" is something that resembles a 7, sometimes with a bar through it. Another symbol (but not a Tironian note) for "et" is of course our own ampersand, &, and both these symbols can occur anywhere in a word which contains the letters "et". The words "videlicet" and "scilicet" (but not "licet" on its own) are abbreviated with a different sign, which might not be a Tironian note, I forget. This one is basically just a squiggle and can look like anything, but often looks like a z, 3, sideways m, a yogh, etc. It's the same symbol that is normally used to abbreviate the dative and ablative plural ending "-ibus". I may be misremembering some things here, but the symbol for "et" and the symbol for "licet" are definitely not the same. Adam Bishop 02:55, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Can you show us a pic of that? — Gulliver ✉  03:49, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


 * This page has some - it has an image of scilicet abbreviated. I better fix my comment about -ibus, as you can see from that page, the sign is also used to abbreviate the -us part of -ibus, as well as the -ue part of -que. Adam Bishop 04:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Now that I look at that page again, you're right that this symbol is used to abbreviate -et at the end of words. I forgot about that. But that's not the Tironian note, which replaces the word "et" meaning "and" (and I think I wrong above, about the Tironian note being used in the middle of other words...the ampersand definitely is though). Sorry, I think we have just misunderstood each other! Adam Bishop 04:42, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


 * So it is not a tironian note (IIUC). What is it? I would like to fix the article accordingly. Thanks to both of you for investigating about this. Gennaro Prota 11:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It's just a squiggle I guess (it can also look like a semi-colon, now that I think of it again). I see that the Tironian note article calls them both Tironian but I don't know if that's true or not. Adam Bishop 02:21, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


 * You know, that symbol looks most like a long zed: ʒ. — Gulliver ✉  08:08, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Usage Problem and Redundant Article?
I'm befuddled by the usage advocated in this article. All dictionaries that I've checked always show viz. with the period. While the extra period may be historically redundant, omitting it does not count as proper usage. Moreover, I don't see where this article adds anything to the lists of Latin phrases and Latin abbreviations. It should probably be merged into those articles. Rcharman 17:12, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I've edited the article. — Gulliver ✉  01:19, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, the article doesn't "advocate" usage. It just says that the period is unnecessary (cf. "Mr" vs. "Mr."). In any case we also have "Viz.", which redirects here. All these are just conventions. Basically, "viz" is not a truncation so the period doesn't make much sense. However if you conventionally choose to terminate all "abbreviations" with a period there's nothing inherently wrong with that choice either. As to Gulliver's edit, is "now usually" is better than "often"? If nothing else I think "now" is one of those words that are better avoided in an encyclopedia (When is "now" for someone reading the article 12 years from now?). --Gennaro Prota 11:11, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * "Now" just means it was not always so. It does not fossilise the information any more than any other statement in the present tense.  If the situation changes in the future, editors are free to modify the text.  — Gulliver ✉  11:43, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * You say that viz. isn't a truncation. Have you looked in any dictionaries?  Almost all that I've seen not only list it with a period, but moreover explicitly state that it is a contraction or abbreviation.  The OED, e.g., lists viz. (with the full stop) and gives its etymology as "Abbrev. of VIDELICET".  Moreover, if you actually did look at Mr, you'd note that the period is required in American English usage, and is only unnecessary in Commonwealth English, as with most abbreviations and contractions. -- Severinus 08:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Certainly, but truncation is not synonymous with abbreviation, nor are either synonymous with contraction. --Badger151 04:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Natch you're right, contraction and truncation are both common ways of forming abbreviations, but certainly different. It was late and I conflated the two, thus completely missing that Gennaro Prota was arguing that only abbreviations formed by truncation should take the period, and not those formed by contraction (e.g. viz.).  In the Commonwealth that is the rule, but as was illustrated with Mr./Mr, American English usually makes no such distinction, and calls for the period for all abbreviations.--Severinus 07:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Dictionaries agree that the period is perfectly acceptable. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language both only have it with the period. Merriam-Webster has it with and without. Even Fowler, while advocating against the period, concedes that "viz. is the prevalent form." Therefore, I remove the following sentence:
 * "In writing, it is now usually followed by an unnecessary period (see below)."
 * --EnOreg (talk) 03:03, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Pronounced "namely"?
The article claims that "viz" is read aloud as "namely", not "viz". I marked this "citation needed" because I don't think I believe it. I for one would always read it as "viz". Stephen Turner (Talk) 12:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Citations provided. Note that the text says that it is "traditionally" pronounced that way: I don't have the new edition of Fowler, but the current (2nd) edition of OED continues to say "In reading aloud usually rendered by ‘namely’."  This may be a holdover.  What sources do you have for the opposite?   --Macrakis 16:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * No sources, just personal experience. Thanks for the references. Stephen Turner (Talk) 12:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Alternate spelling: vizt - and transwiki
According to this document there is another spelling: 'vizt.' There are some old words there that may be useful to add to Wiktionary too.

Someone should put the transwiki tag up to put this on Wiktionary (I don't know it off hand and am too lazy to look it up). -Nathan J. Yoder 07:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * You might want to put this comment on the relevant talk page over at wiktionary, as I don't think archaic variations have much of a place in the wikipedia article. I'm not sure they have much place at wiktionary, either, but that's a discussion better suited to that site.
 * The transwiki tag is &#123;&#123;wiktionary&#125;&#125;. But can I ask why you think there should be such a link? The wiktionary entry doesn't provide any more information than this page does. - Severinus 02:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't doing that imply this article gets deleted? I looked at Template:Transwiki and it indicated that. As of now, it's nothing more than a dictionary entry, so it shouldn't be on Wikipedia at all. I don't know what the standard procedure is, especially considering it says you need to have moved the history, which I can't do, plus it already exists so I guess you'd have to merge manually. I've never seen a dictionary exclude something simply because it's archaic--they simply mark it as such. Nathan J. Yoder 08:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was confused by what you meant, 'cause viz. already exists as a more or less complete entry, and transwiki is I think usually used to move an article from one wiki to another, not to merge existing articles per se. If you're asking to merge this article with the Wiktionary one and then delete this one, I suppose the first step would be to toss a deletion template up on this page.  But I think most folks will vote no and tell you that this is article considerably more detailed than a standard Wiktionary entry, and is at least as valid as et cetera or the like.  In any event, there's nothing to stop you from hitting Edit over in Wiktionary and filling out that entry with stuff from this article.
 * As for the archaic stuff, I was mostly just saying that few dictionaries strive to list the archaic forms of words unless they're likely to be encountered in the modern day, and vizt. isn't very frequently encountered. The OED, for example, lists the archaic forms of "ash" (sing. asce, axe, aske, esche, esssse, aische, asch, ashe, ash, asse; Sc. as, alse, ass. pl. ascan, axsan, æscan, axan, -en, acxen, axin, asken, asshen, aishen, aisshen, -chin, aschen, -yn, axsen, asskess, askes, axses, axes, assches, aschis, askys, -is, asshes, aisshes, aysshes, aischis, asses, -is, ashes) but most other dictionaries don't, 'cause far more often than not it's just a waste of time & space. - Severinus 06:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll do it this weekend probably. As for archaic words, Wikipedia isn't paper, so it's a moot point. -Nathan J. Yoder 09:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

2007-11-6 Automated pywikipediabot message
--CopyToWiktionaryBot 20:09, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The bot should really link here. --EnOreg (talk) 03:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Viz. and Colon
I don't think this is the right place to criticize an historic text. Therefore, I remove the following sentence about the Benjamin Franklin quote:
 * "Having both the word viz. and a syntactical-descriptive colon, as in the second example, is arguably redundant."

It smacks of POV and certainly isn't encyclopedic. --EnOreg (talk) 03:18, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Modern languages
The article reads:

"Though both forms survive in many modern languages, viz. is far more common in English than videlicet. "

Can you please name a few of those modern languages that use such forms? -- 201.69.46.111 (talk) 05:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Not classical?
Wahrmund, what did you mean that there is no evidence that it is classical? Did you mean videlicet, or viz? Videlicet is certainly classical; see Lewis and Short for example. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:12, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I did mean viz. The dictionaries I looked at all said viz. was Middle Latin.  Entries for videlicet merely said "Latin."  : But since you have provided a citation showing that videlicet is Classical, I have restored that. Morris K. (talk) 22:27, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

pronunciation
I learned in college that the latin pronuncitation should sound like "wi duh lick it", the first sound is like "wi" in "win"; not sure how to write this in the phonetic symbols. Does anyone else agree with that pronunciation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnlv12 (talk • contribs) 18:56, 19 November 2008 (UTC)


 * That would be . I wouldn't know about others pronouncing it that way, and I for one use Latin pronunciation. LokiClock (talk) 00:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * That pronunciation is incorrect, and the pronunciations given in the article, /vɪˈdɛlɨsɛt/ or /wɪˈdeɪlɨkɛt/, are correct. The former accords with the usual system for rendering Latin loanwords in English; the latter is closer to Latin as the Romans spoke it. The two systems should not be hybridised. Pronouncing V as /w/ yet having the vowel /ʌ/ (which Latin does not have) marks your pronunciation as a hybrid. 213.249.135.36 (talk) 16:27, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It should be /wɪˈdelɨkɛt/, without the ɪ after the e. --93.135.36.29 (talk) 23:16, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

etymology and original usage
The section says "although it is not related to either". I would like to see the explanation of where it did come from, but I am not qualified. Are there any classics experts that can elaborate on this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnlv12 (talk • contribs) 18:59, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Terminal period
I was always taught (and I don't have Fowler's to hand at work) that one shouldn't use a period after viz, as the z / ʒ substitutes for a "terminal flourish" indicating the abbreviation.

If I can source a reference for this, should we not move the article to Viz and have Viz. redirect there? — OwenBlacker (Talk) 12:38, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Garner's Modern American Usage (2003) uses the period. I don't suppose British usage is different.Wahrmund (talk) 22:29, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Just a small bit of international information...
 * In Czech language, it is only allowed to use viz without the period. Many Czechs also wrongly believe that viz, as it is used, is an archaic form of the imperative mood of the verb vidět (to see in English) which by chance is also viz.
 * In Slovak language, viď is written instead of viz. Viď is the commonly used imperative mood of the verb vidieť (to see in English), so the historical Latin shortcut was fully replaced by a normal Slovak expression. Jednoucelovy (talk) 18:42, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

ss.
The eighth edition of Black's (quoting from Garner) suggests that ss. is not an abbreviation for scilicet:

"Many possible etymologies have been suggested for this mysterious abbreviation. One is that it signifies scilicet (= namely, to wit), which is usually abbreviated sc. or scil. Another is that ss. represents ‘[t]he two gold letters at the ends of the chain of office or “collar” worn by the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench ....’ Max Radin, Law Dictionary 327 (1955). Mellinkoff suggests that the precise etymology is unknown: ‘Lawyers have been using ss for nine hundred years and still are not sure what it means.’ David Mellinkoff, The Language of the Law 296 (1963). In fact, though, it is a flourish deriving from the Year Books — an equivalent of the paragraph mark: ‘¶ .’ Hence Lord Hardwicke's statement that ss. is nothing more than a division mark. See Jodderrell v. Cowell, 95 Eng. Rep. 222, 222 (K.B. 1737) .... An early formbook writer incorporated it into his forms, and ever since it has been mindlessly perpetuated by one generation after another."

Perhaps that last sentence ("In legal usage...") should be deleted. 67.251.27.172 (talk) 08:19, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree, and yet
I can say that in my years of legal training § has always meant "section," and I have never seen an instance of it being used to mean "scilicet." However, I believe I found the text from which that sentence is directly lifted and Princeton is often a reliable source. Perhaps this is referencing an historical legal usage of ss? The link: 

viz. compared to i.e.
Is there an accepted convention for using one over the other, or can they be considered synonyms? i.e. (= id est) is usually translated as "that is" while viz (=vidicelit) stands for "namely", "that is to say" or "as follows". So, what gives? 128.2.226.136 (talk) 19:09, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

3-like?
The article claims that the scribal abbreviation corrputed to z was "3-like" or "Ȝ-like". Based on this image, I suspect it is the same abbreviation that is identified as "7-like" in Scribal_abbreviation. --dab (𒁳) 15:48, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Logic in article; and usage of the full stop; and pronouncing it
Three issues; one is that the article says "The glyph ⁊ for "and" is the only other Tironian abbreviation remaining in use." Other than what?? This is not stated anywhere.

So far as the full stop after it is concerned, modern day British usage is to omit the full stop after any abbreviation unless that would render it ambiguous with a normal word. Could US contributors state whether that is also true in the US?

Finally it is commonplace to pronouce it as spelt, especially if reading out a newspaper article to someone else, for example. In the 1960s this was done with a whimsical smile, but nowadays in the UK it is regarded as standard practice.Afterbrunel (talk) 15:54, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Confusing people
I've know notaries to think the abbreviation "ss." meant "put your SSN here". 76.117.247.55 (talk) 05:09, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

redirected from scilicet ?
So viz. is NOT scilicet so why is redirected? Further, there is no examples for scilicet or Ss., so the logic of the redirection is not right... other than to eliminate a small "low-importance" article. Consci (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:35, 22 May 2020 (UTC)