et al.

I don't know how many people pay attention to the references and bibilographies tucked away in the tail end of the books they read. I've always found them fascinating, hints that there are more and more books to read. An infinite series of words to track down. When a book has multiple authors, you'll often see the primary author's name followed by "et al." This is short for a Latin expression meaning "and others". The trouble is, in Latin you have the masculine "et alii", feminine "et aliae" and neuter "et alia", and I don't know which you'd use for a group of mixed gender. Conveniently, "et al." can also be use for "et alibi" ("and other places"), so by all accounts, that little "et al." is a handy kind of shorthand.

Note that the word "alibi" has its legal meaning of being somewhere else (at the moment of a crime), but it is also used in common speech for having any excuse at all, right down to the dog eating your homework.