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Comment by voidz | Hacker News Reader

Americans often say "ect" (spelled out †). As a Dutch person (when talking in Dutch we say this as "etc" (eat tea sea) or "et cetera") it is very hard for me to not do the lord's work and correct them. And I guess it works if you abbreviate it as Et CeTera.

† edited to add that it's spelled out

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I'm pretty sure I have never encountered "ect" from any person of any nationality.

I believe it's a common mispronounciation, but I have come across this quite often.

I've lived my whole life in the United States, lived I two very different and distance parts, traveled around the country.

I've never heard this. like ever.

Ok, so our experiences differ. Not a big deal.

I think you may be hearing something else and interpreting it as "ect." I also am from the US and have never once in my entire life heard this.

People spell it e-c-t. I have heard it often. I can't help it that you haven't!

I've heard people say "ek cetera" quite a bit.

I've always heard it pronounced incorrectly as "ek setra". And now I'm wondering if it's unusual to pronounce the last word with all three syllables, as I do...

If you hate this as much as I do, don't listen to Sweet and Tender Hooligan by The Smiths. It's a great song, but the last minute or so is horror.

Yeah, true. To the point where I suppose it's basically standard in a bunch of regional dialects.

I have - and I distinctly remember doing it myself as a small child and being corrected by my teacher. (I'm English by the way).

I've heard people pronounce it "eck cetera" many, many times, presumably because they've never actually seen the word in print.

I've never heard anyone say "ect", which would imply that they've seen the word but can't read.

It's a common misspelling in America, similar to incorrect uses of your vs you're.

I've never heard an American spell out "etc.", correctly or not, in conversation; I'm having trouble believing that doing so, much less a particular incorrect way of doing it, is common generally among "Americans", though there may be some narrower regional or other subculture in which it is common.

I am American and say "ee tee cee" for /etc.. but this could possibly be because I taught myself computer science online when I was a kid and so never heard people say many of the terms out loud.

Does any other language pronounce "et cetera" with the "hard" C, as it would be said in Latin?

Occasionally, you might encounter a Latin-speaking pedant who says "Kaizar" (this could also be a German :)) and "et ketera", but it isn't the norm in US English anyway.

I don't know Latin (aside from common phrases) but in many Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian) the ‘C’ is only hard when followed by ‘a’, ‘o’ or ‘u’ (referred to as broad vowels in Irish/Gaelic).

How often is often? I've never seen that in my life.

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