Talk:Videlicet

Comments[edit]

Is it really necessary to separate this from viz? It's just a word...does anyone actually use the whole thing in English (as opposed to viz)? Adam Bishop 03:34, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Adam, this is quite provisional and I'm very open to suggestions; it's likely that two articles will be merged in the future. I thought to give to videlicet an article on its own for basically two reasons: mentioning its etymology (videre licet), which I found difficult to do in the viz article without making the whole quite unreadable, and explaining its usage in legal writings (I'm not sure, but it seems to me that, when used in legal documents, it means something like: "I allow you to see some details (it's allowed to see), but they don't count as an official "proof" or "witness"; for instance:

The accused saw three cars, viz. a black car, a white limousine and a green utility car.

Such a sentence would mean that seeing three cars is an "official witness", but the exact details of the cars could be wrong and can't anyway be used against the accused. It's just licit to "see" them.

As I said, I'm not sure about this meaning, and I guess it applies anyway to its abbreviation "viz" as well.)

However my idea was to explain all the relevant meanings and usages here, then explaining in the viz. article that it is an abbreviation of videlicet, that it can be followed by ., : or both, that the final 'z' comes from a scribal convention etc. I would say, let leave the articles separated for now, the decide when all the material will be in place.

As to the "does anyone actually use the whole thing in English", I don't know, but wikipedia usually try to some extent to be as international as possible, covering non-English usages too. What do you think? Gennaro Prota 10:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, why not just add all the material to the viz article, and save us the trouble of moving it there later? Adam Bishop 03:05, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]