[pluma]

Aside from the quirky interpreations of "eg" and "ie" that triggered this decision, the abbreviations "e.g." and "i.e." are actually problematic, especially when dealing with non-native speakers (or even simply people who had no exposure to Latin).

"e.g." means "exempli gratia" -- I am fairly confident the majority of readers in an international audience (or maybe even a national one) will not actually know this and come up with their own personal backronym (like "ergo" or "example given").

"i.e." means "id est" (literally "that is") -- I know for a fact that even people with some exposure to Latin get this one wrong and instead think it means something like "in exemplum", which actually leads to people using it incorrectly when they should actually use "e.g.". I know this is what I did as a teenager in Germany (while learning Latin in school) and I know that this is what many of my German colleagues tend to do, simply because it seems like an obvious equivalent of the German "zum Beispiel" ("for example").

In the context of a website that explicitly tries to use simple English when possible, I think it is perfectly valid to preempt this confusion and not use phrases which are not actually English and can trivially be substituted with unabbreviated English equivalents in prose (whereas even the unabbreviated Latin would likely not help the reader).

EDIT: I'm not saying you shouldn't use "e.g." or "i.e." ever. I personally use them all the time. But it's absolutely consistent to avoid them when you're trying to use simple language to be understood by a broad audience with varying levels of comprehension.

[waqf]

I don't see what knowing these abbreviations has to do with knowing Latin. They are, to all intents and purposes, English words used in English writing, and people who have had the opportunity to develop a good English vocabulary in other respects will have learned these words too.

(Note, I grew up in England. I have begun to suspect that these abbreviations are used a little less in the US. But there again, if that is the case then the problem still lies with people's unfamiliarity due to not much usage — or perhaps with screen readers' unfamiliarity due to US-centric development — not with Latin.)

(Also, wouldn't the German equivalent of "i.e." be "d.h." which I'm sure I've seen for "das heißt"?)

[yorwba]

You are right about "d.h." being the German equivalent of "i.e." but I've met a lot of Germans who pronounced it "daher" ("therefore"). I guess that proves a point about avoiding obscure abbreviations when someone else needs to understand what you wrote.

[ggambetta]

> come up with their own personal backronym (like "ergo" or "example given").

I'm not a native English speaker, and I've never studied Latin, but I do have access to Wikipedia, Google, and dictionaries, and a policy of not using words I don't understand. If you come across something you don't understand, there really is no excuse for making something up instead of looking it up. It wouldn't be difficult to avoid horrors like "per say" or "segway".

[pluma]

You severely overestimate the eagerness of the vast majority of people in the vast majority of situations.

Also, if when learning English you didn't use any words you didn't perfectly understand, you are most certainly in the minority.

[robin_reala]

A comment on another site said that the author had heard someone claim ‘eg’ was short for ‘egsample’.