Monday, November 19, 2012

single word requests - Better wording for "Among other [stuff]"



I have the following problem. I need to say





Among other information, [the message] will contain information about the following...




I don't like the repetition of "information" here. I thought of




Among other stuff, [the message] will contain information about the following...





I don't like the non-technical "stuff" here.



I also tried




Among everything else, [the message] will contain information about the following...



Among other things, [the message] will contain information about the following...





I don't like these either, perhaps because the message contains only information, so other things or everything else actually means other information, but using that leads to repetition (see first example).



There is a noun in Russian - прочее - which means other things, other stuff. So in Russian, I would be able to say Среди прочего [ = among other, ...]. Unfortunately, in English I can't say




Among other, [the message] will contain information about the following...




When I think about it, it seems that part of the problem is that information is uncountable. If there was a countable noun instead, I'd write, for example,





Among others, the following animals are kept in our zoo.




meaning




Among other animals...





But with information it doesn't work this well. So can you help me express what I want to express (which I hopefully made clear)?.


Answer



The phrase inter alia (“among other things”), which has the handy abbreviation i.a., sometimes is useful. For example: “The message will detail troop strengths and deployments, i.a.”. However, inter alia seems to me to be less applicable to living things.


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