In business, inter alia appears most commonly in formal documents such as the minutes of meetings. It means that the fact or facts being recorded represent only part of the discussion. For example, "The CEO mentioned, inter alia, his worries about increased labor costs." This sentence means that the CEO mentioned other matters during the meeting, but that the minutes record only his concern over labor costs.
As in business, the use of inter alia in legal writing indicates that the recorded content comes from a larger context. West's Encyclopedia of American Law defines it with two specific meanings: 1. "A phrase used in Pleading to designate that a particular statute set out therein is only a part of the statute that is relevant to the facts of the lawsuit." 2. A phrase "used when reporting court decisions to indicate that there were other rulings made by the court but only a particular holding of the case is cited." In both of these uses, the phrase retains its literal meaning of "among other things."
Inter alia can occasionally be found abbreviated as "i.a." However, Webster's dictionary does not support this abbreviation, which should generally be avoided to prevent misunderstanding.
Inter alia, used properly, should refer only to things, not people. The correct Latin for "among other people" is inter alios. For example, "The CEO praised, inter alios, the treasurer for his hard work last quarter" means that the CEO praised several people, including the treasurer.
Don't confuse inter alia with another common Latin phrase et al, which means "and the rest."
For example, from a July 2010 New York Post column: “ [Jimmy] Fallon is the only late-night host known to do a public run-through of that night's monologue. The others -- David Letterman, Jon Stewart, Jay Leno, et al -- just come out at showtime and hope for the best.”