English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I've always preferred variations of "etc" and "et cetera":
"Cetera" is Latin and though we may borrow the Latin phrase in English, it might not be correct in formal settings to use the word alone.
Is it correct if I say "and cetera" ?
Basically, I would say that "and cetera" is NOT going to be understandable immediately, by everyone.
Nor do I understand your logic - "et" is Latin too, so I think you should stick with the 'status quo' and keep both halves in the same language.
Incidentally the & symbol is itself a contraction/ligature of 'et' if I remember correctly, so '&c' is a direct contraction of both parts of 'et cetera'.
In my experience, by far the most common form in written language is etc. It is occasionally written in older texts as &c. (As Mike mentioned, &c. is basically the same as etc. after having gone through some typography changes.) I almost never see it written out as et cetera, and certainly not and cetera. Perhaps in legal documents it might be et cetera, but not general formal documents. In informal documents and speech, it would probably be better to use alternatives like "and more" or "and so on."
I think your question is about written English, given the mention of "&c.". But to be clear, in spoken English, it should always be pronounced as et cetera, and not contracted in some way.
