Et Cetera - Other Uses

Other Uses

"Et cetera" and derivatives such as "etceteras" have long been, and still are, used airily, humorously or dismissively, often as a cadigan, for example:

• ... he still wanted numberless appendages to make him a fine gentleman, such as a fashionable tailor and hairdresser, an unblushing confidence, together with a long train of etceteras. These fashionable introductories being wanting, Mr Whitmore was obliged to find a substitute... (1823)
• The cost of the locomotives and their etceteras, is to be $136000 – their wear and tear $75600. Etceteras $90000... (1834)
• The etceteras: asteroids, comets and interplanetary dust are chemically speaking, "impurities" and are just a minuscule fraction of planetary matter. (1989)
• Having tried "to recover myth outside the books," the hidalgo crosses paths with common sense, everyday toils, and the religious dictates of the Counter-Reformation on a journey that tries to rescue chivalric etceteras of old. (2008)