Etceterini (pronounced et-set-er-rhini)
One or all
of the sports cars & racing cars produced in small volumes by a number of
“boutique” Italian manufacturers during the quarter-century-odd following World
War II (1939-1945).
1980s
(though not attaining wide currency until publication in 1990): A portmanteau
word, the construct being etcetera(a) + ini.
Etcetera was from the early fourteenth century Middle English et cetera (and other things; and so
forth), from the Latin et cētera (and
the other things; and the rest of the things), the construct being et (and) + cetera (the other things; the rest). Et
was from the Proto-Italic et, from
the primitive Indo-European éti or heti and was cognate with the Ancient
Greek ἔτι (éti), the Sanskrit अति (ati), the Gothic iþ (and,
but, however, yet) and the Old English prefix ed- (re-). Cētera was the plural of cēterum, accusative neuter singular of cēterus (the other, remainder, rest),
from the Proto-Italic ke-eteros, the
construct being ke (here) + eteros
(other). The Latin suffix -īnī was an inflection of -īnus (feminine -īna, neuter -īnum), from
the Proto-Italic -īnos, from the
primitive Indo-European -iHnos and
was cognate with the Ancient Greek -ινος (-inos)
and the Proto-Germanic -īnaz. The suffix was added to a noun base
(particularly proper nouns) to form an adjective, usually in the sense of “of
or pertaining to and could indicate a relationship of position, possession or
origin”. Because the cars referenced tended
to be small (sometimes very small),
some may assume the –ini element to be an Italian diminutive suffix but in
Italian the diminutive suffixes are like -ino, -etto, -ello & -uccio but etceterini
works because the Latin suffix conveys the idea of “something Italian”. It was used substantively
or adverbially. Until the early
twentieth century, the most common abbreviation was “&c.” but “etc.” (usually
with a surely now superfluous period (full-stop)) has long been the standard
form. Etcetera is a noun; the noun
plural is etceteras
The word
“etcetera” (or “et cetera”) fully has been assimilated into English and (except
when used in a way which makes a historic reference explicit) is for most
purposes no longer regarded as “a foreign word” though the common use has long
been to use the abbreviation (the standard now: “etc”). If for whatever reason there’s a need for a “conspicuously foreign” form then the
original Latin (et cētera (or even
the Anglicized et cetera)) should be
used. There is no definitive date on
which the assimilation can be said to have been completed (or at least
generally accepted), rather it was a process.
From the 1400s, the Middle English et
cetera was used and understood by educated speakers, due to Latin's prominence
in law, science, religion and academia with it by the mid-eighteenth century
being no longer viewed as a “foreignism” (except of course among the
reactionary hold-outs with a fondness for popery and ecclesiastical Latin: for
them, in churches and universities, even in English texts, et cētera or et cetera
remained preferred). Scholars of
structural linguistics use an interesting test to track the process of
assimilation as modern English became (more or less) standardized: italicization. With “et cetera” & “etcetera”, by the
mid-eighteenth century, the once de rigour italics had all but vanished. That test may no longer be useful because
words which remains classified as “foreign” (such as raison d'être or schadenfreude)
often now appear without italics.
The
so-called “pronunciation spellings” (ekcetera, ekcetra, excetera & exetera)
were never common and the abbreviations followed the same assimilative path. The acceptance of the abbreviated forms in
printed English more widespread still during the 1600s because of the
advantages it offered printers, typesetters much attracted by the convenience
and economy. By early in the eighteenth
century it was an accepted element (usually as “&c” which soon supplanted
“et cet”) in “respectable prose”, appearing in Nathan Bailey’s (circa 1690-1742)
An Universal Etymological English
Dictionary (1721) and gaining the imprimatur of trend-setter Anglo-Irish
author & satirist Jonathan Swift (1667–1745). Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)) made
much use of “&c” in his A Dictionary
of the English Language (1755) and although Bailey’s dictionary was influential
in the breadth of its comprehensiveness and remained, over 30 editions, in
print until 1802, it’s Dr Johnson who is better remembered because he was became
a “celebrity lexicographer” (a breed which today must sound improbable.)
One of the
implications of linguistic assimilation is the effect on the convention applied
when speaking from a written text.
Although wildly ignored (probably on the basis of being widely unknown),
the convention is that foreign words in a text should be spoken in the original
language only if that’s necessary for emphasis or meaning (such as Caudillo, Duce or Führer) or emphasis. Where
foreign terms are used in writing as a kind of verbal shorthand (such as inter alia (among other things)) in oral
use they should be spoken in English.
However, the convention doesn’t extent to fields where the terms have
become part of the technical jargon (which need not influence a path of
assimilation), as in law where terms like inter
alia and obiter (a clipping of obiter dictum (something said by a judge
in passing and not a substantive part of the judgment)) are so entrenched in
written and oral use that to translate them potentially might be misleading.
Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, left), Britney Spears (b 1981, centre) & Paris Hilton (b 1981, right), close to dawn, Los Angeles, 29 November 2006; the car was Ms Hilton's Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (C199 (2003-2009)). This paparazzo's image was from a cluster which included the one used for the front page on Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) New York Post with the still infamous headline “BIMBO SUMMIT”. Even by the standards of the Murdoch tabloids, it was nasty.
So, the text written as: “Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears et al recommend that while a handbag always should contain “touch-up & quick fix-up” items such as lipstick, lip gloss, and lip liner, the more conscientious should pack more including, inter alia, mascara, eyeliner, eyebrow pencil, concealer, a powder compact, a small brush set & comb etc.” would be read aloud as: “Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and others recommend that while a handbag always should contain “touch-up & quick fix-up” items such as lipstick, lip gloss, and lip liner, the more conscientious should pack more including, among other things, mascara, eyeliner, eyebrow pencil, concealer, a powder compact, a small brush set & comb etcetera.” Despite the cautions from purists (including just about every grammar text-book and style guide on the planet), the “choice” between “etc” and “et al” does seem to becoming blurred with many using seemingly using the two interchangeably. The rules are (1) “etc” (and other things) is used of things (and according to the style guides should always appear with a period (full-stop) even though such use is archaic and another of those “needless tributes to tradition”) and (2) “et al” (and others) is used of people (especially in citations and again, always with a period). So, “et al” can’t be used for things; strictly, it’s for things; it’ll be interesting to see if these rules survive into the next century. Really, it's a silly rule and because it's hardly difficult to distinguish between a text string of "people" and one of "things", if used interchangeably, the two abbreviations are unlikely to confuse. Et al was the abbreviation of the Latin et aliī (and others).
In computing, Unix-based operating systems (OS) feature a directory (the word “folder” thought effete by the Unix community, most of whom are at their happiest when typing arcane commands at the prompt) called “etc” (along with /root, /boot, dev, /bin, /opt etc) which is used as a repository for system-wide configuration files and shell scripts used to boot and initialize the system. Although there are many variants of the OS, typically an /etc directory will contain (1) OS configuration files (/etc/passwd; /etc/fstab; /etc/hosts), (2) system startup scripts (/etc/init.d or /etc/systemd/, (3) network configuration, (4) user login & environment configuration files and (5) application configuration files. Originally (sometime in 1969-1970), the “etc” name was adopted because it was “an et cetera” in the literal sense of “and so on”, a place to store files which were essential but didn’t obviously belong elsewhere, a single “general purpose” directory used to avoid needless proliferation in the structure. Rapidly Unix grew in complexity and configurability so the once “place for the miscellaneous” became the canonical location for configuration files, the original sense displaced but the name retained. It is pronounced et-see (definitely not ee-tee-see or et-set-er-uh). Despite their reputation, the Unix guys do have a joke (there are unconfirmed rumors of a second). Because so many of the files in /etc can be modified with any text-editor, in some documentation earnestly it’s revealed /etc is an acronym meaning as “Editable Text Configuration” but that is fake news and a backronym.
The Etceterini
In the
tradition of mock-Latin, the word etceterini was a late twentieth century
coining created to refer to the ecosystem of the numerous small-volume Italian
sports & racing cars built in the early post-war years. A portmanteau word, the construct being etceter(a)
+ ini, the idea was a word which summoned the idea of “many, some obscure” with
an Italianesque flavor. Credit for the
coining is claimed by both automotive historian John de Boer (who in 1990
published The Italian car registry: Incorporating the registry of Italian oddities: (the etceterini register) and
reviewer & commentator Stu Schaller who asserts he’d used it previously. Whoever first released it into the wild (and
it seems to have been in circulation as least as early as the mid-1980s) can be
content because it survived in its self-defined niche and the evocative term
has become part of the lexicon used by aficionados of post-war Italian sports
and racing cars. Being language (and in
this English is not unique), it is of course possible two experts, working in
the same field, both coined the term independently, the timing merely a
coincidence. Etceterini seems not to
have been acknowledged (even as a non-standard form) by the editors of any mainstream
English dictionary and surprisingly, given how long its history of use now is,
even jargon-heavy publications like those from the Society of Automotive Engineers
(SAE) haven’t yet added it to their lexicons.
It does though appear in specialist glossaries, car-model registry
websites and niche discussion forums, especially those tied to classic Italian
car culture (OSCA, Moretti, Stanguellini, Siata, Bandini, Ermini etc). So, as a word it has sub-cultural & linguistic
clarity but no status among the linguistic establishment.
John De
Boer’s comprehensive The Italian car
registry: Incorporating the registry of Italian oddities: (the etceterini
register) was last updated in 1994 and remains the best-known publication
on the many species of the genus etceterini and included in its 350-odd pages not
only a wealth of photographs and cross-referenced details of specification but
also lists chassis and engine numbers (priceless data for collectors and
restoration houses in their quests for the often elusive quality of
“originality”). Nor are the
personalities neglected, as well as some notable owners the designers and
builders are discussed and there are sections devoted to coach-builders, a once
vibrant industry driven almost extinct by regulators and the always intrusive
realities of economics. One thing which
especially delights the collectors are the photographs of some of the obscure
accessories of the period, some rendered obsolete by technology, some of which
became essential standard-equipment and some seriously weird. Mr De Boer’s book was from the pre-internet
age when, except for a pampered handful in a few universities, “publication”
meant paper and printing presses but such things are now virtualized and
“weightless publication” is available instantly to all and there are small
corners of the internet curated for devotees of the etceterini such as Cliff
Reuter’s Etceteriniermini, a title which certainly takes some
linguistic liberties. Some trace the
breed even to the late 1930s and such machines certainly existed then but as an
identifiable cultural and economic phenomenon, they really were a post-war
thing and although circumstances conspired to make their survival rare by the
mid 1960s, a handful lingered into the next decade.
That the
ecosystem of the etceterini flourished in Italy in the 1950s was because the
country was then a certain place and time and while the memorable scenes depicted
in La Dolce Vita (1960) might have
been illusory for most, the film did capture something from their dreams. After the war, there was a sense of renewal,
the idea of the “new” Italy as a young country in which “everybody” seemed
young and for those who could, sports car and racing cars were compelling. However, while there was a skilled labor
force ready to build them and plenty of places in which they could be built,
economics dictated they needed to be small and light-weight because the
mechanical components upon which so many relied came from the Fiat parts bin
and the most significant commonality among the etceterini were the small
(often, by international standards, tiny) engines used otherwise to power the
diminutive micro-cars & vans with which Fiat in the post-war years “put
Italy on wheels”. It was no coincidence
so many of the small-volume manufacturers established their facilities near to
Fiat’s factory in Torino, the closest thing the nation had to a Detroit. In the early years, it wasn’t unknown for a
donkey and cart carrying a few engines to make the short journey from the Fiat
foundry to an etceterini’s factory (which was sometime little more than a big
garage). However, just because the
things were small didn’t mean they couldn’t be beautiful and, being built by
Italians, over the years there were some lovely shapes, some merely elegant but
some truly sensuous.
There was a
high failure rate but many for years flourished and developed also lucrative
“sideline” businesses producing lines of speed equipment or accessories for
majors such as Fiat or Alfa Romeo and, as has happened in other industries,
sometimes the success of these overtook the original concern, Nardi soon
noticing their return on capital from selling thing popular custom steering
wheels far exceeded what was being achieved from producing a handful of little
sports cars, production of which quickly was abandoned with resources
re-allocated to the accessory which had become a trans-Atlantic best-seller. Whether things would have gone on
indefinitely had the laissez-faire spirit of the time been allowed to continue
can’t be known but by the 1960s, traffic volumes rapidly were increasing on the
growing lengths of autostrade (the
trend-setting Italian motorway system begun during the administration of Benito
Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) with
accident rates & the death toll both climbing. Italy, like many jurisdictions began to
impose safety regulations which before long made small-scale production runs
unviable but by then rising prosperity meant people were able to purchase their
own Fiat or Alfa-Romeo and the etceterini faded into fond memory. It is of course unthinkable such a thing
could again happen because the EU (European Union) is now staffed by divisions
of Eurocrats who spend their days in Masonic-like plotting and scheming to
devise new reasons to say no, non, nein,
nee, nein, não etc. Had these
bloodless bureaucrats existed in the 1940s, not one etceterini would ever have reached
the street.