• over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Either way, et.al is used frequently in legal documents, at least in the USA. And they retrofit their new top level domains to old documents where it was never used as any sort of link.

    et.al should be banned, literally for all previous legal court documents.

    • Brokkr@lemmy.worldEnglish
      17·
      1 year ago

      I think it was a typo, the phrase is usually written “et al.” which cannot be confused with a domain.

      • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Also, what’s the difference between a typo and an autocorrect glitch unnoticed?

        If one single dot is the difference between legit words vs a janky link, the internet is doomed.

        attachment.zip

      • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        You do realize another way to write et al is…

        et. al.

        Miss one space, bam, your typo turns into a link these days.

        • Dusty@l.dusty-radio.comEnglish
          6·
          1 year ago

          That’s on you, not the internet or google. As has been pointed out, dot al is a TLD for a country. Just because you can’t type properly and didn’t spell check yourself, doesn’t mean the internet is doomed.

        • Brokkr@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          “et” doesn’t need to be abbreviated, it’s a full word. “al.” is short for “alia”.

          You could argue that typos shouldn’t get turned into links, but there’s simply no good way of stopping that from happening.

          • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            1 year ago

            Yes, yes there most certainly is a way to completely prevent that from ever happening.

            Get rid of this whole automatic link detecting shit altogether and require the use of https:// before every single link.

            Believe it or not, that’s how the internet used to work, and we didn’t have stupid shit like attachment.zip