“In Terms Of”
Why does anyone speak and write in terms of something else?
In Modern American Usage, Wilson Follett says that the construction “in terms of” has become extremely popular:
“The rage for expressing everything in terms of something else is a disease traceable to college-catalogue English. From 1900 on a college course was hardly respectable if it did not offer to present literature in terms of its social effects, an author in terms of his influence on the development of this or that form, history in terms of underlying economic forces, geography in terms of transportation and commerce, and so on. It was not long before academic writers found themselves unable to finish a paragraph without using in terms of.”
When the Construction Is Helpful
As Theodore M. Bernstein says in Dos, Don’ts, and Maybes of English Usage, “in terms of” is occasionally helpful when we are in fact speaking or writing in special terms. For example, we might speak or write about English grammar in terms of Latin grammar; and we might speak or write about temperature in terms of the Fahrenheit scale or in terms of the Celsius scale. But as Bernstein also says, “In most instances a simple preposition (about, of, concerning) or a simple phrase (with respect to, in the matter of) can be substituted for in terms of with no loss except of…
