equivalency
I’m reviewing a New Zealand scientific report which uses the word ‘equivalency’. This sounds to me like an Americanisation of the word ‘equivalence’, both being nouns but with the redundancy of an additional syllable in ‘equivalency’.
As we use British English (despite word processing software trying to force American English upon us) I’m inclined to use ‘equivalence’. What do you think?
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I think 'equivalency' is mostly used in America. Even the ngram view of 'equivalence' and 'equivalency' makes it clear that the use of the former is widely prevalent. There is no specific reason to add 'equivalency' to the existing 'equivalence'.
K. Satyanarayana Rao Jul-21-2017
7 votes Permalink Report Abuse
I think 'equivalency' is mostly used in America. Even the ngram view of 'equivalence' and 'equivalency' makes it clear that the use of the former is widely prevalent. There is no specific reason to add 'equivalency' to the existing 'equivalence'.
K. Satyanarayana Rao Jul-21-2017
3 votes Permalink Report Abuse
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=equivalence%2Cequivalency&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=17&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cequivalence%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bequivalence%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BEquivalence%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BEQUIVALENCE%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cequivalency%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bequivalency%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BEquivalency%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BEQUIVALENCY%3B%2Cc0
Even in American books, equivalence is far more common.
jayles Jul-21-2017
6 votes Permalink Report Abuse
Personally I would compare it to much and many, like much money, or how many carrots
connor Dec-12-2017
3 votes Permalink Report Abuse
In Canada and the US, "equivalency" may seem more familiar than "equivalence" because it appears in the name of the certificate that people may earn instead of a high school diploma. The General Equivalency Diploma is often referred to by its initialism, GED.
Both "equivalency" and "equivalence" are nouns so the terms are, so to speak, equivalent (or equal).
I admit that I'm not an expert on New Zealand English, but I don't see any reason to change the author's original wording.
pmoraga Dec-21-2017
4 votes Permalink Report Abuse