Astronomers, designers, etc., and more
A simple phrase has been catching my eye in some of the prose I鈥檝e worked on lately. I鈥檝e sometimes let it pass, but I鈥檝e deleted it when its lack of actual meaning has been particularly obvious.
The phrase is 鈥渁nd more.鈥澛�
Is it just another way of saying 鈥渆tc.鈥�? A Generation X or maybe Millennial alternative?
Copy editors do not like 鈥渆tc.鈥� If whoever or whatever is covered by this abbreviation for the meaning literally 鈥渁nd the others鈥� is important, it should be spelled out. And if it鈥檚 not important, or if everyone already knows what it is, why even mention it?
鈥淎nd more鈥� invites the question, 鈥渕ore what?鈥� After all, wrote, 鈥淎ll Gaul is divided into three parts....鈥� Not 鈥渢hree parts and more.鈥�
Trying to determine how widespread 鈥渁nd more鈥� was, I surfed around Google News and found that , the pop music site, had some recommendations for me: 鈥淐ollecting the finest from Swedish psychedelia experts, bedroom-pop players, sultry Top 40 queens, and more, these are the songs you need to know right now.鈥�
Well, maybe so. Let鈥檚 leave aside the dangling participle. (Who鈥檚 doing the collecting? Not the songs.)聽
The et cetera that hints at that which the reader already knows or can readily imagine is different from the et cetera that follows the enumeration of a string of disparate elements. What is the 鈥渁nd more鈥� here? Banjo players? A klezmer band? An autotuned trio? Maybe not.
鈥淓tc.鈥� or 鈥渁nd more鈥� can be either verbal fluff or filler for the missing third of a series.
You can stop at two, and yet there is a power of three. Two points define a line, but three points define a plane. Three legs support a stool. And as any journalist will tell you, three data points define a trend.
Please bear with me as I launch into what will seem like a digression: Growing up fascinated, like much of the rest of my cohort, with the romance of outer space, I noticed that Schiaparelli, the Italian astronomer who first sighted canali on Mars, had a namesake in the world of Italian fashion. Any connection? Yes, astronomer Giovanni was the great-uncle of designer : an interesting stand-alone factoid.
Years later, editing a book that discussed the space probe named for , the Italian astronomer who discovered four of Saturn鈥檚 moons and the split in its rings, I recalled a more recent Cassini in the fashion world: Oleg Cassini, Jackie Kennedy鈥檚 celebrated designer. Any connection to the astronomer? The apparently believed so.
So that makes two interesting factoids on the same theme 鈥� but only two.
And that鈥檚 why my column on Italian Fashion Designers With Noted Astronomers in Their Family Trees may have to wait a bit 鈥� until there are headlines from Italy: 鈥淗ouse of Galileo debuts in Milan, wows critics with breathtaking new designs, and more.鈥�
