Viz

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The correct title of this article is viz. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.


For other uses, see Viz (disambiguation).

The adverbs viz and videlicet are two words of Latin origin used today as synonyms of "namely", "precisely", "that is to say", and introduce a specification or a more detailed description of something stated before. Often, as with a syntactical-descriptive colon, this is a list. Though both forms survive in many modern languages, viz is by far more common in English than videlicet. Also, by English tradition, viz is read aloud as "namely" or "to wit," not phonetically as [vɪz]. In writing, it is now usually followed by an unnecessary period (see below). Unlike e.g., neither viz or videlicet should be used to introduce examples.

[edit] Etymology and difference with the original meaning

Videlicet is itself a Classical Latin word (uidēlicet) and is a contraction of uidēre licet (uidēre, to see; licet, third person sing. present tense of licēre, to be permitted), hence its original meaning of "it may be seen", "evidently", "clearly." In classical Latin it was used to confirm a previous sentence or, ironically, to state its contrary. Both usages have pretty much been lost over the course of the years, leaving the simpler meaning explained above. A similar expression is scilicet, abbreviated sc. ("of course"), from scīre licet ("it may be known").

Viz is a transliteration of a medieval scribal abbreviation for videlicet: its first two letters followed by a Tironian sign which looked similar to the numeral 3, or the Middle English letter yogh (although related to neither of these).

[edit] Examples

  • The main point of his speech, viz. that our attitude was in fact harmful, was not understood.
  • My grandfather had four sons that grew up, viz.: Thomas, John, Benjamin and Josiah.[1]
  • The poor world is almost six thousand years old,[2] and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause.[3]

Having both the word viz and a syntactical-descriptive colon, as in Ben Franklin's example above, is arguably redundant.

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin at Project Gutenberg
  2. ^ At the time of writing the origin of the world was placed, by biblical calculations, around 4000 BCE
  3. ^ From As You Like It by William Shakespeare, act 4, scene 1, l. 94-7
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