earnings Do not write earnings when you mean profits (try to say if they are operating, gross, pre-tax or net).
-ee employees, evacuees, detainees, divorcees, referees, refugees but, please, no attendees (those attending), draftees (conscripts), enrollees (participants), escapees (escapers), indictees (the indicted), retirees (the retired), or standees. A divorcee may be male or female.
effect the verb, means to accomplish, so The novel effected a change in his attitude. See also affect.
-effective, -efficient Cost-effective sounds authoritative, but does it mean good value for money, gives a big bang for the buck or just plain cheap? If cheap, say cheap.
effectively, in effect Effectively means with effect; if you mean in effect, say it. The matter was effectively dealt with on Friday means it was done well on Friday. The matter was, in effect, dealt with on Friday means it was more or less attended to on Friday.
either … or see none.
elite, elitist Once a neutral word meaning a chosen group or the pick of the bunch, elite is now almost always used pejoratively. Elitist and elitism are even more reprehensible. No matter that the words have their roots in the French verb élire, to elect, and the Latin eligere, to pick out; if you believe in government by a chosen group, or are a member of such a group, you are a reprobate. Only elite forces seem to escape censure. Though scornful of elites in education and politics, most people, when taken hostage, are happy to be rescued by elite troops. Use these words with care.
enclave An enclave is a piece of territory or territorial water entirely surrounded by foreign territory (Andorra, Ceuta, Kaliningrad, Melilla, Nagorno-Karabakh, Nakhichevan, San Marino).
endemic, epidemic Endemic means prevalent or generally found in a place or population. Epidemic means prevalent among a population at a particular time.
enormity means a crime, sin or monstrous wickedness. It does not mean immensity.
environment is often unavoidable, but it’s not a pretty word. Avoid the business environment, the school environment, the work environment, etc. Try to rephrase the sentence – conditions for business, at school, at work, etc. Surroundings can sometimes do the job. In a writing environment you may want to make use of your correction fluid, rubber (or American eraser) or delete key.
epicentre means that point on the surface (usually the Earth’s) above the centre of something below (usually an earthquake). So Mr Putin was not at the epicentre of the dispute, he was at its centre.
The hypocentre, in contrast, is the place on the surface (usually of the earth) below something above (usually an explosion). It is the same as ground zero.
eponymous is the adjective of eponym, which is the person or thing after which something is named. So George Canning was the eponymous hero of the Canning Club, Hellen was the eponymous ancestor of the Hellenes (Greeks), Ninus was the eponymous founder of Nineveh. Do not say John Sainsbury, the founder of the eponymous supermarket. Rather he was the eponymous founder of J. Sainsbury’s. The word is ugly, though, and usually unnecessary.
ethnic groups Your first concern should be to avoid giving offence. But also avoid mealy-mouthed euphemisms and terms that have not generally caught on despite promotion by pressure-groups.
Ethnic meaning concerning nations or races, or even something ill-defined in between, is a useful word. But do not be shy of race and racial. After several years in which race was seen as a purely social concept, not a scientific one, the term is coming back among scientists as a shorthand way of speaking about genetic rather than cultural or political differences. See also political correctness.
Africans may be descended from Asians, Europeans or black Africans. If you specifically mean the last, write black Africans, not simply Africans.
Anglo-Saxon is not a synonym for English-speaking. Neither the United States nor Australia is an Anglo-Saxon country; nor is Britain. Anglo-Saxon capitalism does not exist.
Asians In Britain, but nowhere else, Asians is often used to mean immigrants and their descendants from the Indian subcontinent. Many such people are coming to dislike the term, and many foreigners must assume it means people from all over Asia, so take care. Note that, even in the usage peculiar to Britain, Asian is not synonymous with Muslim.
blacks In many countries, including the United States, many black people are happy to be called blacks, although some prefer to be African-Americans. Black is shorter and more straightforward, but use either. Use Native American for indigenous Americans, to avoid confusion with the growing number of Indian-Americans.
mixed race Do not call people who are neither pure white nor pure black browns. People of mixed race in South Africa are Coloureds. Note the capital.
other groups The inhabitants of Azerbaijan are Azerbaijanis, some of whom, but not all, are Azeris. Those Azeris who live in other places, such as Iran, are not Azerbaijanis. Similarly, many Croats are not Croatian, many Serbs not Serbian, many Uzbeks not Uzbekistanis, etc.
Spanish-speakers in the United States When writing about Spanish-speaking people in the United States, use either Latino or Hispanic as a general term, but try to be specific (eg, Mexican-American). Many Latin Americans (eg, those from Brazil) are not Hispanic.
euphemisms Avoid, where possible, euphemisms and circumlocutions, especially those promoted by interest-groups keen to please their clients or organisations anxious to avoid embarrassment. This does not mean that good writers should be insensitive to giving offence: on the contrary, if you are to be persuasive, you would do well to be courteous. But a good writer owes something to plain speech, the English language and the truth, as well as to manners. Political correctness can be carried too far.
So, in most contexts, offending behaviour is probably criminal behaviour. Female teenagers are girls, not women. Living with mobility impairment probably means wheelchair-bound. Developing countries are often stagnating or even regressing (try poor) countries. The underprivileged may be disadvantaged, but are more likely just poor (the very concept of underprivilege is absurd, since it implies that some people receive less than their fair share of something that is by definition an advantage or prerogative).
Remember that euphemisms are the stock-in-trade of people trying to obscure the truth. Thus Enron’s document-management policy simply meant shredding. France’s proposed solidarity contribution on airline tickets was a tax. Bankers’ guaranteed bonuses are salaries (or fractions thereof).
Take particular care if you borrow the language of politicians, especially when they are trying to justify a war. “They make a wilderness and call it peace,” wrote Tacitus nearly 2,000 years ago, quoting Calgalus, a British chief whose people had suffered at the hands of the Romans. Orwell was equally acute in pointing out decades ago how terms like transfer of population and rectification of frontiers put names on things without calling up mental pictures of them. Friendly fire, body count, prisoner abuse, smart bombs, surgical strike, collateral damage have been coined more recently with the same ends in mind. The Reagan administration spoke of its airborne invasion of Grenada in 1983 as a vertical insertion.
The butchers of the Balkans produced ethnic cleansing, and the jihadists of al-Qaeda speak of martyrdom operations in place of Islamically incorrect suicide-bombs. The Bush administration, with its all-justifying war on terror (prosecuted with the help of the Patriot Act), provided more than its fair share of bland misnomers. Its practice of enhanced interrogation was torture, just as its practice of extraordinary rendition was probably torture contracted out to foreigners and its self-injurious behaviour incidents at Guantánamo Bay were attempted suicides. The president’s ensuing reputational problem just meant he was mistrusted.
Orwell would surely have put human-rights abuses in the same category of nerve-deadening understatement as pacification and elimination of unreliable elements. The term may occasionally be useful, but try to avoid it by rephrasing the sentence more pithily and accurately. The army is accused of committing numerous human-rights abuses probably means The army is accused of torture and murder. A high-net-worth individual is a rich man or rich woman. Zero-percent financing means an interest-free loan. Non-observable inputs are assumptions used in self-serving guesswork. Intimate apparel is underwear.
See also affirmative action.
Euro- is the prefix for anything relating to the European Union; euro- is the prefix for anything relating to the currency. The usual rules apply for the full, proper names (with informal equivalents on the right below). Thus:
| European Commission | the commission |
| European Parliament | the parliament |
| European Union | the Union |
| Treaty of Rome | the Rome treaty |
| Treaty on European Union | the Maastricht treaty |
| Treaty of Lisbon | the Lisbon treaty |
The EU grouping may be called EU-15, EU-27.
When making Euro- or euro-words, always introduce a hyphen.
Exceptions are:
Europhile Europhobe Eurosceptic Eurobond Euroyen bond
Prefer euro zone or euro area (two words, no hyphen) to euro-land. CAP is the common agricultural policy.
EMU stands for economic and (not European) monetary union.
ERM is the exchange-rate mechanism.
IGC is an inter-governmental conference.
ex- (and former) Be careful. A Labour Party ex-member has lost his seat; an ex-Labour member has lost his party.
execute means put to death by law. Do not use it as a synonym for murder. An extra-judicial execution is a contradiction in terms. (See assassinate.)
existential Often used, seldom understood, even it seems by those who use it, existential means of or pertaining to existence. In logic it may mean predicating existence, and in other philosophical contexts, relating to existentialism. It is sometimes used in such phrases as existential threat or existential crisis, where the author wants it to mean a threat to the existence (of Israel, say) or a crisis that calls into the question the existence of something (eg, NATO). But in most instances, including most in The Economist, it seems to serve no purpose other than to make the writer believe he is impressing his readers.