Re: OT: ff

[Emery Snyder emerylist@xxxxxxxx]

It should be "et seq." in Latin ("et" is not abbreviated), and if you
want to say "on more than one following page", it's "et seqq." using
the doubling principle.

German works like Latin: 95f. = "95 und folgende Seite" = "page 95 and
the page after", 95ff. = "95 und folgende Seiten" = "page 95 and the
pages after." The Germans really go for abbreviations:

a.a.O = am angegebenen Ort = loc. cit.
u.ö. = and frequently at other times
udg. / u.ä. = und dergleichen mehr / und ähnliches = et sim.
u.a. = unter anderem = among other things
u.a.m. = und andere mehr = etc.

But not just scholars: the answering machine (Anrufbeantworter) is
usually referred to in colloquial German as an "AB". Or at least, it
was before everyone there got cell phones and switched to voicemail.

I totally forgot when answering that the original post was about ff =
following; shows my own bias that I immediately thought of folios.

e




---------------------------
Tuesday, 8 July 2003, 6:20:36 PM, Patricia wrote:

> Hmm. Interesting point. Of course, I'm more accustomed to using "et.
> seq." for "following" (grin!), but I assume the doubling for plurality
> notion is behind ff. there, just as it is in the musical notation. The
> OED, interestingly enough, does not record even f. for "following", but
> does list this abbreviated usage: "in a ship's log, F stands for
> fog, FF for thick fog. There is a standard handbook of
> abbreviations, but I don't seem to have a copy here.
> Patricia