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This is an essay on the overuse of "respectively".
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The following article on "respectively" appeared in the original edition (1926) of Modern English UsagebyH.W. Fowler, p. 500. Its copyright has expired and it is now in the public domain. I couldn't put it better. The original was tightly formatted; I have reformatted it for legibility. --Macrakis (talk) 00:17, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
respective(ly). Delight in these words is a wide-spread but depraved taste ; like soldiers & policemen, they have work to do, but, when the work is not there, the less we see of them the better ; of ten sentences in which they occur, nine would be improved by their removal. The evil is considerable enough to justify an examination at some length ; examples may be sorted into six groups:
There are two other chapters in which Strauss & Debussy take respectively a higher & a lower place than popular opinion accords them.
That training colleges for men & women respectively be provided on sites at Hammersmith & St Pancras.
This makes it quite possible for the apparently contradictory messages received from Sofia & Constantinople respectively to be equally true.
The particular fool for whose benefit each r. is inserted will be defined in brackets.
Final statements are expected to be made today by Mr Bonar Law & M. Millerand in the House of Commons & the Chamber of Deputies respectively
The Socialist aim in forcing a debate was to compel the different groups to define their r. attitudes
It is very far from certain that any of the names now canvassed in Wall Street will secure the nomination at the r. Republican & Democratic Conventions
We have not the smallest doubt that this is what will actually happen, & we may discuss the situation on the footing that the respective fates of these two Bills will be as predicted
After each is given in brackets the expression or the fact that makes r. superfluous.
Having collected the total amount, the collector disburses to each proper authority its r. quota
He wants the Secretary for War to tell the House in what countries they are at present stationed, & the numbers in each country respectively
Madame Sarah Bernhardt & Mrs Bernard Beere respectively made enormous hits in 'As in a Looking Glass'
The October number of the Rassegna is chiefly remarkable for the r. articles of the Marchese Crispolto Crispolti on Pope Benedict V & the War & by the Marchese Colonna di Cesarò on Zionism & the Entente
In the Preussische Jahrbücher for May the most noteworthy articles are those respectively by Werner Weisbach, who writes on Germany in modern Italian political criticism, & by Professor Hans Delbruck, who contributes an extremely interesting comparison between...
The writing-room, silence-room, & recreation-room, have respectively blue & red arm-chairs.
A certain estate is for sale ; its grounds border three main roads, namely, Queen's, Belmont, & King's respectively.
The writers of these mean no more than both (to be placed in the second after Fellow).
The two nurses' associations respectively organized in Scotland make no secret of their membership.
He was a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, & of the University of London respectively.
It is recognized that far too little is known by Englishmen & Americans about their r. countries; in this country there is only one lectureship on American history, & that is at King's College, Strand.
The simple fact is that respective{ly) are words seldom needed, but that pretentious writers drag them in at every opportunity for the air of thoroughness & precision they are supposed to give to a sentence.