Viz

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For other uses of "Viz", including the comic, please 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 Template:IPA; in writing, it is now usually followed by an unnecessary period. Unlike e.g. neither viz or videlicet ought to be used to introduce examples.

Etymology and difference with the original meaning

Videlicet was itself a classical Latin word; viz, instead, is a transliteration of a medieval scribal abbreviation for videlicet: its first two letters followed by a sign looking something like the numeral 3, or the Middle English letter yogh (although related to neither of these).

Videlicet (uidēlicet) 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").

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.<ref>The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin at Project Gutenberg</ref>

• The poor world is almost six thousand years old<ref>At the time of writing the origin of the world was placed, by biblical calculations, around 4000 BCE</ref>, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause.<ref>From As You Like It by William Shakespeare, act 4, scene 1, l. 94-7</ref>

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

References