Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-1296654-20190726133841/@comment-1296654-20200913131508

That would make sense in certain situations but not in others where a full list would be difficult or impossible to put together. For example, this bullet point from the Continuity section of Rose - "The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver. (TV: Fury From the Deep, et al.)"

Given that this thread still has not been closed after fourteen months, I figure I'd better double down so I can go back to only teaching people the difference between adjectives and nouns.


 * Definitions of etc.
 * Merriam-Webster - "and others especially of the same kind : and so forth"
 * Collins Dictionary - "used at the end of a list to indicate that you have mentioned only some of the items involved and have not given a full list."
 * Macmillan Dictionary - "used after a list of things to mean ‘and others of the same type’, when you do not want to mention everything"
 * Cambridge Dictionary - "and other similar things. It is used to avoid giving a complete list"


 * Definitions of et al.
 * Merriam-Webster - "typically stands in for two or more names, especially in bibliographical information"
 * Collins Dictionary - "is used after a name or a list of names to indicate that other people are also involved"
 * Macmillan Dictionary - "used after a name to mean ‘and other people whose names are not mentioned’, especially people who have written a book together"
 * Cambridge Dictionary - "and others. It is used in formal writing to avoid a long list of names of people who have written something together"

For the difference in usage between the two, a quick Google search will find pages such as this one on Grammarly or this one on Grammarist, in which "etc. vs et al." is dedicated the tiniest of sections reading, "Et cetera refers to things. Et al. refers to people."

Why this wiki has been using et al. all these years, I cannot say, but the above information speaks for itself and proves beyond, I'd say, any reasonable doubt that it is incorrect.