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@theelench wrote:

I seem to remember some years ago there was discussion of banning all Latin in official publications as it was elitist.   The R4 Today programme brought in an academic to put the anti side of the argument and he pointed out that, one way or another, about seventy percent of English words are derived from Latin.  The idea died after that and I hope it does again.

 

What is the difference between a Latin abbreviation and some obscure English ones, everyone uses them whether they know they are Latin or not.  They are part of the every day usage.

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There is no difference and that is the whole point of this exercise.

If I'm reading a book then I have no problem in opening a dictionary to discover the meaning of some obscure word or phrase, that is just one way of expanding my vocabulary.

What I don't expect is to open a government website and have to go through the same exercise!

It is setting the bar too high to expect all those with English as a second language to include Latin abbreviations in their vocabulary as a priority.  When was the last time you used e.g., i.e., etc., et al. and so on in everyday conversation?  It just isn't normal to do so.