Why do we abbreviate "for example" with "E.g"?

Question

to all the idiots who keep telling me "eg" is shorter I am not blind and can see the obvious although you seem to have not noticed the blaitantly obvious point of the queston that there is no G in for example!

Answer 1

Others have already explained, sort of, that the letters themselves are a LATIN abbreviation, short for "exempli gratia". But I gather your question is, 'Why do we use a LATIN abbreviation instead of an English one?'

Basically, this abbreviation, and many like it (including cf., etc., ibid., i.e., n.b., q.v., sic, viz.) are the residue of a time when Latin was the universal academic language of Europe. Though writers eventually began to write scholarly works in their native languages, some chose to continue using many Latin abbreviations that had become familiar and convenient. (English writers were quite conservative in this matter, in conrast to Germans, for instance, who susbtituted abbrevisations for equivalent German expressions.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_abbreviations
(Includes a list of other signficant Latin abbreviations used in English writing.)
see also: http://www.stcsig.org/sn/latin_abbreviations.shtml

Note that when such Latin abbreviations appear, the proper way to read them aloud is, in most cases, to substitute the FULL ENGLISH expression, not to speak the abbreviation itself, nor its Latin equivalent. So, listing the most common cases, when you find "e.g." simply say "for example"; for "etc" say "and so forth" (NOT "et cetera"!), for "i.e." say "that is", for "viz." say "namely", for "cf." say "compare". (Some exceptions -- A.M., P.M., P.S., A.D -- for which the common practice is to pronounce the letters.)

Answer 2

It takes less space than spelling it out in some texts. I.e. if you had to write every expression like this, particularly in scholarly work, you would just take too much of a page, since such expressions are used extensively there. I.e. means "therefore." Does that answer your question? e.g., not sure what that means but always liked the look of it, you know, an egg. Oh, could it be "that is?"

Answer 3

It's the abbreviation for the Latin phrase "exempli gratia", which means "for the sake of example"

Answer 4

newspapers pay for the space they use, it might be like 5 or 10 cents a character.

Answer 5

it's is from the Latin "exempli gratia", loosely meaning "for example".

Answer 6

Latin for "exampli gratia" translated to "for example"

Answer 7

"E.g." is an abbreviation of "exempli gratia," which means "for example" or "for instance."

Answer 8

I always thought it meant example given...

Answer 9

See this link:

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/e.g.html

Answer 10

Its latin for ummm ummmmmmm I forget!