I wrote a message to a friend in Google Mail. Google Mail automatically hyperlinked the acronym 'et.al' (et.al., is an aronym for 'and others' which I used in my message). I can't find much of anything about the domain name other than the extension 'al' is Albania. DIG seen to show it points to 23.88.103.163. Reverse lookup and WHOIS don't come up with much. Errors and the inability to resolve the extension 'al'.

From DIG:
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et.al. 7199 IN TXT "v=spf1 ip4:192.80.133.42 ip4:192.80.133.43 ip4:198.71.89.128 ip4:198.71.89.129 ip4:192.157.249.252 ip4:192.157.249.253 ip4:192.157.249.254 ip4:192.157.244.48 ip4:192.157.244.46 ip4:192.157.244.5 ip4:23.88.103.163 ip4:23.88.103.164 ip4:23.88.103.165 a mx ~" "all"
et.al. 7199 IN SOA l.truste.es. admin.truste.es. 2015091601 10800 3600 604800 86400
et.al. 7199 IN NS n.truste.es.
et.al. 7199 IN NS l.truste.es.
et.al. 7199 IN MX 10 mx.et.al.
et.al. 7199 IN A 23.88.103.163

First, why would Google mail auto hyperlink et.al.; and

Second, what the heck is this pointing to?

The mildly paranoid IT part of my mind doesn't like stuff like this, especially when I have problems identifying it.


"A little bit of paranoia is a survival characteristic."

Just a thought.

Did you use et.al or et al (without the period)?

et.al does seem to be a web site - not sure what it is though. If you type et.al into your browser you are asked for a beta key to log into the site, whatever that is.

On the other hand, if you type et al you get all the hits relating to 'et alii' which, as you say, means 'and others'.

DM

Just tried it.

When writing the mail I don't see hyperlinking for any of these:

et.al.

et.al

et al

BUT: when receiving with yahoo webmail I see I see hyperlinks for these two:

et.al.

et.al

(same when checking the sent folder in Gmail)

Now I am looking forward to what the forum SW will do.

While writing I see no hyperlinks.

I would set this aside as yet another annoyance of the little SW helpers that pretend to be helpful.

Just tried these two:

etc.pp.

etc.pt.

First one not hyperlinked.

Second one hyperlinked (pt is a valid top level domain).

Seems like always you have a period (dot) before a top level domain they will produce a hyperlink?

r2d2.pt comes as a (dead) hyperlink

I think the problem, as mentioned, is the '.al' with any combination of letters prior and without a space. Your mail service is assuming it is a link. Also, I'm fairly sure that 'et al' is not an acronym or an abbreviation; it's just latin for 'and others'. We used it all the time on land surveys. So I suggest leave out the period and just type it as a normal phrase.

The abbreviation al. is for the Latin word alia.

Here's a reference. Et should not be abbreviated. The correct usage is et al.

www.thefreedictionary.com/et+al.

yep. google thinks et.al is an internet domain, because it fits the format.

maybe writing et al. correctly would dispel any confusion google mail and the OP have

yep. google thinks et.al is an internet domain, because it fits the format.

maybe writing et al. correctly would dispel any confusion google mail and the OP have

Plus it is a proper domain. .al is the top level name (country code) for Albania so no surprise it tries to interpret it as a site url.

It's not an acronym, it's an abbreviation and if it's typed correctly, i.e. et al. (the full stop may be omitted), you won't have a problem with it.

Here's a reference. Et should not be abbreviated. The correct usage is et al.

www.thefreedictionary.com/et+al.

Thanks!