'Why is the word 'etal' on my statement?' Ask the tax man.

You know you've arrived when you show up on the mailing list of J.D. Johnson, Benton County Collector of Revenue, PO Box 428, Warsaw, Mo. And IABC member Wilma K. Mathews, who is director of p.r. for Arizona State U., Tempe, just mailed me a flyer she got from J.D.'s jurisdiction (She did not expand on why she was selected).

But she was quick to question a Q&A item she noted on the flip side: "'Why is the word Etal on my statement?' It is a word which means and others. It is used when there is not enough space to list all of the owners."

J.D. may not be right, but he's got an answer. As Wilma notes, the correct form is et al., Latin shorthand for either et alibi (and elsewhere) or et alii (and others). It is a two-piece item.

Two companion terms often confused are e.g. and i.e. The first stands for exempli gratia, meaning for example; the second represents id est, meaning that is. The text Words into Type opines "It is not correct to use e.g. as it is used in the following sentence: Wrong: Socioeconomic level, e.g., is a factor to be considered. Right: Socioeconomic level, for example, is...."

Perhaps the most common solecism with i.e. shows it being used where e.g. is needed: "Certain basic food groups, i.e., grains and chocolate, are eschewed by dieters."

Words into Type adds that "The abbreviation etc. should be used as little as possible, and it should never be preceded by and (and etc.). Neither etc. nor its equivalent and so forth should be used after examples preceded by the words such as."

A second inquiry from ABC Mathews spotlighted "a usage that has always puzzled me. The first was 'In recognition of your providing superior service...' and the second was 'I appreciate your serving on the committee.' Shouldn't your be you? How did this usage come into being?" My friend Wilma; always poses the easy questions. Alors! In these citations, providing and serving are gerunds, or verb forms ending in -ing that act as nouns. The American Heritage Book of English Usage (Houghton Mifflin, 1996) opines, "Some people insist that when a gerund is preceded by a noun or pronoun, the noun or pronoun must be in the possessive case. Accordingly, it is correct to say I can understand his wanting to go, but incorrect to say I can understand him wanting to go. But the construction without the possessive, sometimes called the fused participle has been used by respected writers for 300 years and is perfectly idiomatic....

"Sometimes syntax makes using the possessive impossible. Consider the sentence What she objects to is men making more money than women for the same work. Changing men making to men's making not only sounds awkward, but it requires women's at the other end to keep the sentence parallel, and women's simply does not work. Perhaps for these reasons 53 percent of [The American Heritage Dictionary] Usage Panel finds the phrase men making acceptable in this sentence, and another 36 percent find it acceptable in informal contexts. Only 11 percent reject it outright."

In its conclusion on the subject "Possessive with gerund," Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (Merriam-Webster, Inc. 1989) says, "We suspect that this is one of those idiomatic usages that seldom give the native speaker trouble. It will trouble learners of English much more. We can only advise learners that the possessive will almost always be safe for pronouns and will probably work most of the time with nouns. But in doubtful cases, you may need to consult a native speaker."

Wilma, did you keep Tax Collector Johnson's address? ;-].

* A truly unusual new book, Words That Make America Great (Random House Reference & Information Publishing, pp. 587, U.S. $30) presents nearly 200 documents and speeches in an enchanting red, white and blue paper trail that stretches from the Iroquois Federation Constitution of 1570 to Robert Dole's resignation. The standards are there - Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Washington's Farewell - but so are Baseball's Original Rules (1845) and George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" routine. A glorious mine for speechwrights. The composers are big book-man Jerome Agel and history writer Milton Cantor.

I just received Dr. Phyllis Mindell's A Woman's Guide to the Language of Success (Prentice-Hall, 227 pp., U.S. $14.95) a feisty, aggressive how-to that calls a spade a bleeping shovel. Goal: enhance and empower women by improving and expanding their language repertoire and pinpointing the language of weakness. Mindell says, "When you were a little girl, you were taught never to use a four-letter verb beginning with the letter f - but that isn't the only one! The four-letter f verb that destroys your credibility is...feel. Feel is a useful verb when it describes smoothness or coldness;...At work, it's wimpy, weak, and wishy-washy: feels fails."

And Mindell's head-butt against invasive like is worth the jacket price.

* Internet Thought for IABCers: The judicious application of terror is an effective form of communication.

Alden Wood, APR, lecturer on editorial procedures at Simmons College, Boston, Mass., writes and lectures on language usage. He is a retired insurance industry vice president of advertising and public relations (his E-mail address is [e-mail]).