Editing Et cetera (section)

== Spelling and usage ==
The one-word spelling ''etcetera'' appears in some dictionaries.<ref name="isbn0-19-861271-0">{{cite book |author=Brown, Lesley |title=The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles |publisher=Clarendon |location=Oxford [Eng.] |year=1993 |isbn=0-19-861271-0 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/newshorteroxford00lesl }}</ref> The abbreviated form ''&c.'' or ''&c'' is still occasionally used—the [[ampersand]] ⟨&⟩, derives from a [[Typographic ligature|ligature]] of {{lang|la|et}}.<ref>{{Cite EB1911 |wstitle= Editorial Introduction |volume= 1 | last= Chisholm |first= Hugh |author-link= Hugh Chisholm | pages= x-xxiii |short=1}}</ref>

The phrase ''et cetera'' is often used to denote the logical continuation of some sort of series of descriptions.  For example, in the following expression:

{{in5}}We will need a lot of bread: wheat, granary, wholemeal, etc. on our menu.

In this case of a use at the end of a list without conjunction, a comma is typically written in front of the phrase (but see [[Serial comma]]). If etc. is used at the end of a sentence, the dot is not doubled. If it occurs at the end of exclamations, questions or a clause, the dot is not suppressed but followed by whatever punctuation marks are required to end or continue the sentence.

[[File:Et cetera r rotunda.svg|thumb|upright=0.5|''etc.'' in [[Fraktur]]]]
In [[blackletter]] (Gothic or Fraktur) typography, the [[r rotunda]] ⟨ꝛ⟩ is sometimes used for ''et'' in place of the similar-looking [[Tironian notes|Tironian et]] ⟨⁊⟩, followed by ''c'', to yield ''ꝛc''.