While "sine nomine" and the like are Latinisms that never moved out of the world of bibliography and so appear to some users as obscure or confusing, I would argue that "circa" has become part of the English language.
The OED certainly supports that argument (http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/33169?redirectedFrom=circa#eid – subs. req.): "Around, round about, about. The prep. is often used in English with dates, as circa 1400 (c1400)." --Ben Benjamin Abrahamse Cataloging Coordinator Acquisitions, Metadata and Enterprise Systems MIT Libraries 617-253-7137 From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Adger Williams Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2012 11:14 AM To: RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Showing birth and death dates Note that this is not peculiar to French. (Spanish, German, Russian, Italian,... all share this feature) On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 7:51 PM, J. McRee Elrod <m...@slc.bc.ca<mailto:m...@slc.bc.ca>> wrote: Friend Hal from down under has pointed out yet another problem with RDA words rather than hyphens, when only one of birth or death date is known. The words in French would differ with gender: "... the need to distinguish gender in French: né masc., née fem. for 'born', mort/morte for 'died'." __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca<mailto:m...@slc.bc.ca>) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ -- Adger Williams Colgate University Library 315-228-7310 awilli...@colgate.edu<mailto:awilli...@colgate.edu>
