To a Frenchman, everything is a platitude that is not a paradox. The Bramleighs Of Bishop's Folly Charles James Lever A platitude that nobody has expressed and that nobody has acted on is a great truth. The Ghost in the White House Gerald Stanley Lee It is tolerated to-day for no other reason than that it has cornered the platitude market.
It is short for the Latin et alii ('and others'), which means and others.. For example, the phrase IBM, Microsoft, HP, et al. means IBM, Microsoft, HP and others or Carrâ¦uthers et al.- Carruthers and others.
Al is a contraction (shortening of two words into one) of a (to) and el (the; masculine singular). Try saying a el really fast. It's not extremely easy and kind of sounds choppy. Now say al..