Ever wonder what ETC. means? This is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase et cetera. Note that there is a period at the end. In Latin, et means and, and cetera means the rest. This term is abbreviated to etc. and means and so forth.
Also, etc. is mostly used for informal writing, like to friends. You are told not to use etc. for formal writing like research papers and resumes. So what should you use?
- and so on
- and the like
- along with others
- including
- such as
- and so forth
A further clarification. You should not say: The dinner was attended by my friends John, Mary, Taylor, etc. Why? Etc. cannot be used when listing the names of people. Instead, use et al. with the period only on the second word, standing for and others.
On this Friday I should end here and send you off with a cartoon. However, I started this posting because I have a special draft page that accumulates assorted items that are not quite newsworthy, but interesting to some, like me. I will feature two:
- On 24October2023 I reported: Finally, sad to report that Bobi, the world's oldest dog EVER, died at the age of 31 years and 165 days. Lived for 11,478 days in Conquiros, a small Portuguese village. Well, Guinness World Records has suspended that title because some veterinarians questioned the authenticity. Stay tuned for the final analysis.
- Just over the past few days space missions and a new film made some headlines.
- Astrobiotic Technology of the U.S., funded by NASA, sent Peregrine to the moon's orbit, but lost control, and the effort crashed into the South Pacific Ocean.
- This was the U.S.'s first lunar lander mission in half a century. That graphic above is what Peregrine would have looked like if it succeeded.
- The company has a bigger lunar lander, Viper, a rover to the moon, scheduled for the moon in a year.
There will be a second attempt, also with NASA money, Intuitive Machines, set to blast off next month for another moon project. To the right is what IM-1 might look like if it lands around the lunar south pole.
Japan became the fifth country to reach the moon, after the Soviet Union, U.S., China and India. Unfortunately the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, had battery problems and the mission failed.
Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket aboard Axiom-3 took off to send astronauts from Turkey, Italy, Sweden and USA/Spain to the International Space Station on a 14-day mission.
There is a new film, I.S.S., about mystery and drama on the International Space Station involving intrigue between the Russian and American space dwellers when the crew sees an obvious nuclear bomb explosion over a major city, and their handlers telling each to take over control under any circumstances. Can they instead work out a better solution? Rotten Tomatoes reviewers only gave it a 60 rating.
To close, what are the best space movies of all-time? TimeOut provides their top 30:
- #1 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Rotten Tomatoes 82/89. by Stanley Kubrick of Arthur C. Clark's novel.
- Who can forget the Dawn of Man, with Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra and that haunting monolith?
- Douglas Rain of Canada was the voice of the HAL 9000 computer.
- In 1968, the year 2024 was 56 years away. It has been that long, and we remain a civilization just trying to get again to only the Moon.
- As an aside, I yesterday posted on the 26 Zatoichi films from Japan. The movie with the lowest rating, that is, #26, got a reviewers' score of 83, one more than 2001, the best space film ever.
- #2 The Martian (2015), with Matt Damon, who played a marooned astronaut on Mars. Actually won a Best Comedy notice at the Golden Globes.
- #3 WALL-E (2008), one of my very favorite films, although I also liked those two above. Got RT scores of 95/90.
#4 Star Wars (the top four RT scores were in the 90's, but they swiftly dropped to #12, The Clone Wars, at 19%), #5 The Right Stuff, #6 A Trip to the Moon (1902), #8 Galaxy Quest (hey, it's playing right now on BBC), #12 Star Trek 2, #16 Alien, #28 Contact (one of my favorites), etc.
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