>Erm ... thanks Jay? But I didn't know that the two tended toward mutual exclusivity.
>
>>You are an interesting, albeit funny, man, Mr. McDonnell...

I think I meant the more neutral "although" instead of "albeit." You forced me to go and get a lesson:

For the journalist in everyone: http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20001107

Albeit may be an odd, archaic-sounding verbal flourish, but as a conjunction it has been flourishing since Chaucer's time. As you imply, it literally means 'all (completely, entirely) though it be'. The actual meaning of albeit is closer to 'even though or even if; although (it be)', and just like although, though, it is sometimes used to begin a clause: "He can ask for a loan, albeit I do not think he will get it." Here albeit implies an opposition or contrast, and yes, it is very similar to but.

However, the Albert Einstein quote shows the more common use of albeit in a concessive phrase," one that expresses some sort of conceding, yielding, or admitting. In this use albeit can mean 'conceding or admitting that; in spite of the fact that', and the word notwithstanding can sometimes be substituted.

In the word albeit, the verb "be" is the third person singular present subjunctive. (The corresponding indicative form would be "is.") In subjunctive constructions, the order of subject and verb is sometimes reversed: "Be it ever so humble...; Be it feast or famine..." (Patrick Henry's exclamation, "If this be treason, make the most of it," is an example of a subjunctive construction in which subject and verb are in the usual order.)

Historically, the adverb all has been used with the conjunctions if and though, and often the order was reversed, producing "all if, all though." The phrase "all though" was originally an emphatic form of though, which later became although. Sometimes the conjunction if or though was dropped if the verb was placed before the subject, leaving all as an apparent conjunction, in the sense of "even if, even though, although." So the phrase "al be it" meant 'although it be', which later became the one-word form albeit.