Etymology

The word etcetera has been with us for up to 2548 years. 2548 years and counting since Doric columns first divided the term, et cetera, followed by prolonged success after being joined together; a Castilian smash hit that gradually decayed until becoming, like all smash hits, an abbreviation, a spare room for odds and ends, a paradise in ruins, etc. The word etcetera contains flowing rivers. Swept away are cattle, sheep, fields and nationalities; tribes and bureaucrats; itemized lists and other indelible separations. Etcetera also carries with it a sizeable quantity of trained professionals who respect order. No doctoral theses end in etcetera, or include it in the title of a section on, shall we say, the state of art. But perhaps there ought to be one, or more than one. It is a word that procures the repatriation of yawns. A generous way to tell the mind to breathe. In the conspiracy game of syntax, it is a tiny playground within a phrase. Given all of the above, it doesn’t often show up in poems, which tend to mistrust mental recreation. There are reservations as to what it has to gain by silencing. By running aground: by doing what words do to meanings. What goodbyes are capable of doing. What I do with run-on sentences and a keyboard. Etcetera.

 

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