I’ve seen .: used two times now, and I really wonder what is? The first time I saw it was in an extract from the Swedish dictionary SAOL in NE. They used it something like this so:
History.: since year x
More lately I saw it used in this comment by @[email protected] like so:
What make bikes so expensive?
R.: The willing of people to buy them.
What is this? Were does it come from? Should I use it?
Edit: thanks for all the answers :). It turns out it was actually used for abbreviation in the dictionary, they wrote “hist.” instead of “historia”.
FYI, “i.e.” comes from the Latin id est, meaning “that is”.
“e.g.” means “for example”, from the Latin exempli gratia.
The meaning is a little different, though the two are often interchanged. You should use “i.e.” to clarify a singular meaning (think “in other words…”) and use “e.g.” to give one of potentially many examples.
See https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/ie-vs-eg-abbreviation-meaning-usage-difference for more examples and explanations.
For English speakers, you can mentally substitute “idiom explained” and “example given” as a mnemonic to help remember the difference.
Mischief managed?
My parenthetical seems to have mysteriously vanished!
Good to know. I’m not a native English speaker. I was going for the equivalent of the German “z.B.” - “zum Beispiel”.
z.B. = e.g.
d.h. = i.e.