On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 01:09:29 +0100, Josip Rodin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted to gmane.linux.debian.devel.dpkg.general: > On Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 10:20:18AM +0100, Helge Kreutzmann wrote: >> Last line of man md5sum >> Lankester et al 29th November 1995 MD5SUM(1) >> It has to be "et al." (with a dot), because et is latin for and, and >> al. is the latin abbreviation for others. > WordNet explicitely accepts both with and without the period, and > Merriam-Webster doesn't even mention the period...
Dictionaries often do not cope well with punctuation in the headwords. If <http://www.lib.ohio-state.edu/guides/chicagogd.html> is not enough of an example, look in Google for "chicago manual of style" and "et al" http://www.esc.edu/esconline/across_esc/writerscomplex.nsf/0/519eba0d0debbd09852569c30071d4fe?OpenDocument states the following: Often, it is an open question whether or not to use periods with abbreviations. According to the Chicago Manual of Style the trend is strongly away from using periods with all kinds of abbreviations that have carried them in the past. but then they proceed to give examples with periods nevertheless. /* era */ -- formail -s procmail <http://www.iki.fi/era/spam/ >http://www.euro.cauce.org/ cat | more | cat<http://www.iki.fi/era/unix/award.html>http://www.debian.org/
