What's the Difference: i.e. vs. e.g.

The Dilemma: You're reading a document that's riddled with needless, pretentious Latin abbreviations (a legal brief, e.g., or mental_floss's exploration of differences, i.e., this book), but your year of high school Latin has been obscured by the fog of memory.

People You Can Impress: Roman emperors, lawyers, and grammar nerds.

The Quick Trick: E.g. means "for example"; i.e. means "that is." We at mental_floss remember this simply by employing Valley Girl speak. Where a fancypants Latinist would use e.g., a Valley Girl would use "like." And where the Latinist uses i.e., the Valley girl goes with "I mean." Like: "I love going out with Todd. He has, like, a really nice car. I mean, it cost a lot of money."

The Explanation: We will never understand why English abbreviations like BRB and LOL are derided as lazy, while Latin abbreviations are seen as the height of class. But now and again, it just sounds better to spice things up with a little dead language, and since Greek and Sanskrit both use unfamiliar alphabets, Latin's your best bet.

E.g. is short for exempli gratia, which literally means "by grace of example." I.e. is more straightforward: id est means "that is." The confusion stems from the fact that both abbreviations seek to clarify or focus a broad proposition, but e.g. is followed by a specific example, whereas i.e. is followed by a restatement.

Now that you know your i.e. from your e.g., we hereby provide a guide to other Latin abbreviations and phrases that some people use, even though the English language has already stolen all the Latin words it needs.

Other Helpful Latin Abbreviations:

C.f.: Often misused to mean "see, for instance," c.f. is actually short for confer. Confer is the imperative of conferre and means "compare" in Latin even though it means no such thing in English. Just remember c.f. should be used in English only to mean "compare with."

Etc.: Literally, "and the rest," etc. (the abbreviation of etcetera) indicates that the list it follows is a partial. For that reason, it's redundant, and therefore poor grammar, to say, "I love hair metal; e.g. Whitesnake, Poison, Damn Yankees, etc.," since the "for example" immediately makes it clear that the list is partial.

QED: An abbreviation for quod erat demonstradum that means "which was to be demonstrated." These days, QED generally means "Look, Mom, I proved it!" Mathematicians sometimes still end their proofs with "QED," and you sometimes hear lawyers say it, because laywers will say absolutely anything in Latin.

The article above was reprinted from the mental_floss book "What's the Difference?" with permission.

Monet? Manet? Who can even tell the difference? Well, with the help of the newest mental_floss tome, you can! ... mental_floss gives you all the tips and tricks to have you sounding like a genius.


A good place to get your "i.e's" and "e.g's" right you should get the podcast called "Grammer Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing."

Good stuff, yo!
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I specifically remember learning that i.e. can also mean "in exemplum," which makes that usage of it identical to e.g. Anybody know of a debunking of that notion?
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For people, I use "et alia" (or "et al.") rather than "etc." It means "and others." I've never heard of "i.e." meaning "in exemplum," but a quick search via Google shows that this is a common (mis?)perception.
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Reminds me of my favorite sequence from Get Shorty:

"Ray "Bones" Barboni: Let me explain something to you. Momo is dead. Which means that everything he had now belongs to Jimmy Cap, including you. Which also means, that when I speak, I speak for Jimmy. E.g., from now on, you start showing me the proper fucking respect.
Chili Palmer: "E.g." means "for example". What I think you want to say is "I.e.".
Ray "Bones" Barboni: Bullshit! That's short for "ergo".
Chili Palmer: Ask your man.
Bodyguard: To the best of my knowledge, "e.g." means "for example".
Ray "Bones" Barboni: E.g., i.e., fuck you! The point is this: is that, When I say "jump", you say "OK", okay?"
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Shabby! Not only is a commenter trying to pull a fast one (with a phony phrase, "in exemplum," for "i.e."), but also the main post has an error in each explanation of three additional abbreviations,
(1) "C.f." should be "Cf." -- without the extra period.
(2) "Etc." is not "the abbreviation for "etcetera" -- but rather the abbreviation for "et cetera" (with a space between the two Latin words).
(3) "QED" is not the "abbreviation for quod erat demonstradum" -- but rather the abbreviation for "quod erat demonstrandum" (with an "n" before the second "d."
Tsk, tsk!
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