Poll: Advisor vs. adviser

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Which spelling is correct—advisor or adviser?

Google argues for advisor. Searches yielded 741 million results for advisor versus only 132 million for adviser.

The SEC favors “adviser.”

When I ran a poll on this topic in 2012, “advisor” won over “adviser,” 79% to 21%. Most of my clients prefer “advisor,” too. However, some people whom I respect favor “adviser,” as you’ll see in Bill Winterberg’s tweet, the links below, and the comments on this post.

Updates to “Advisor vs. adviser”

July 2012 update:

Here are links to two recent articles on this topic:

March 2017 update: I removed the outdated poll reference and shared the results of that poll.

Also, see the advisor vs. adviser link in the following tweet, courtesy of Stephen Foreman:

Phillip Shemella, author of “Advisor or Adviser: A data-journey for one word that goes both ways,” says, “advisor is a title, and adviser is anyone else who advises and is not already an advisor.”

“Adviser or advisor? The debate rages on” covers similar ground in Investment News.

POLL: How do you pluralize “index”?

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Indexes or indices? Which is the better way to pluralize “index”? This topic came up in an exchange with Theresa Hamacher, president of NICSA. She said:

When Bob Pozen and I used “indexes” in the manuscript of our book, The Fund Industry: How Your Money is Managed — and our copy editor changed them all to “indices” — I ended up going back to “indexes,” partly because of personal preference, partly because I believed “indexes” is more common in our industry. But I wondered whether was an industry standard. . .

In favor of indices

Indices is the correct way to pluralize index in Latin, according to multiple sources on the Internet.

Grammarist says that indices is the most popular plural form of index outside North America. So, should North Americans go along? I agree with Grammarist: “…while it’s true that indices is the correct plural of index in Latin, index is an English word when English-speakers use it, so we can pluralize it in the manner of our own language.”

In favor of indexes

Reader comprehension is my number one priority. I think the average American will recognize indexes as the plural of index. I’m not so sure what they’ll make of indices.

Garner’s Modern American Usage says it’s pretentious to use indices. “For ordinary purpose, indexes is the preferable plural…,” says author Bryan Garner. However, he notes that indices is preferred by some writers in technical fields. If performance measurement is a technical field, then perhaps performance professionals can make a case for indices.

Indexes won in terms of number of appearances on Google. The term appears about 112 million times vs. about 88 million for indices.

Please answer the poll in the right-hand margin

What’s YOUR preference–indices or indexes? Please answer the poll in the right-hand margin of this blog. I will report on the results in my newsletter.

How do you spell euro + zone?

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Europe’s problems sometimes dominated economic and market news.

eurozone1

Spelling of “euro zone” in 2011

eurozone

Spelling of “eurozone” in 2022

They’ve also inspired me to investigate different ways of spelling and punctuating the combination of euro + zone.

First, let me point out that you should not capitalize the initial letter of “euro” unless it’s in a context where you’d also capitalize “dollar.” For example, in an article title or the first word of a sentence. Although many writers capitalize “euro,” it’s a currency, not a place.

When I first investigated this topic 10 years ago, plenty of sources used “euro zone” or “euro-zone,” but the tide seems to have shifted to “eurozone.” You can see the shift in the two images above from The Wall Street Journal that I captured about 10 years apart.

There is a trend to close up words, as I discussed in “Spelling tip: When in doubt, close it up.”

Euro + zone as a noun

Initially, I commonly saw the region spelled “euro zone” as two separate words, with no hyphen, in U.S. publications.

However, now I see “eurozone” in AP style, The Wall Street Journal,  Wikipedia, The Financial Times, and Investopedia.

Euro + zone as an adjective

There are two schools of thought about whether to hyphenate compound adjectives, as I discussed in “Should you hyphenate ‘fixed income’?”

The Wall Street Journal  used to hyphenate euro-zone when the paper’s reporters used the term as an adjective. You see an example in the image below from 10 years ago. (Please note, in the image the term “euro-zone” appeared as the first word of a sentence. That’s the only reason it is capitalized.)However, it seems to have migrated to “eurozone,” which fits with a trend toward closing up spaces in hyphenated words. Please note, in the image the term “euro-zone” appeared as the first word of a sentence. That’s the only reason it is capitalized.

Sources that used “eurozone” for the noun, also used it for the adjective.

What’s the best practice?

I go with eurozone. What about you?

Whatever you do, I hope you’re consistent. Consistency helps your readers understand you better.

 

Note: This post was updated in December 2022, but was initially published in 2012.

Usage tips for portfolio performance commentary writers

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It’s almost time for quarter-end investment performance reporting. I have some tips for you.

1. Use the past tense.

Why? Because portfolio performance commentary discusses historical performance.

2. Describe benchmarks’ key characteristics, when appropriate.

The general public doesn’t know the difference between the S&P 500 and the S&P 400. They may think one is a subset of the other, like the Fortune 50 and the Fortune 1000. So specify “the mid-cap S&P 400.”

3. Be consistent in how you spell and punctuate terms.

For example, choose between “indexes” and “indices.” Decide whether you’ll use “small cap” exclusively without a hyphen or hyphenate it as “small-cap” when you use it as an adjective.

4. Limit your references to the time period.

Once you establish that you’re writing about the second quarter, don’t repeat that information frequently. However, if you shift between discussing the second quarter and the month of June, name the periods often enough that your reader follows your transitions.

5. Don’t go crazy replacing “returned,” as in “the fund returned 3%.”

There are plenty of other ways to convey the information in the sentence. However, I believe too much variety is counterproductive in a paragraph that consists mainly of returns. Instead, the variety distracts from the reader’s ability to compare returns. If you’re citing many index returns, perhaps you should insert a table.

Do you have grammar, punctuation, or other usage tips for people writing about investment performance? Please leave them as comments below.

Where’s the typo?

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Can you find the typo in the following paragraph? If no one finds it, I’ll post the answer next week.

A strong fourth-quarter rally capped an impressive 2010 for U.S. stocks. The Morningstar US Market Index returned 16.8% in 2010, largely due to an 11.5% gain in the fourth quarter. A second round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserved fueled a fourth-quarter rally in U.S. equities.

This kind of typo is why I suggest that you “Forget your spell checker!“

Forget your spell checker!

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You can’t rely on automated spell checkers. They won’t catch all of your typos.

I remember a beautiful institutional investment pitch book shared by a senior portfolio manager. I’ll call him George Miller. The front cover billed him as “George Miller, Portfolio Manger.”

Yes, that’s “manger” not “manager.”

You can use the proofreading methods in “Six ways to stop sending emails with errors” to complement your spell checker.

Your spell checker doesn’t work so you must proofread

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Can you identify the error?

The picture shows the subject line of an email that I’ve edited to hide the identity of the guilty typist. It includes the kind of error that a spell checker won’t catch. Even Microsoft Word’s grammar checker didn’t catch the typo when I tested the complete sentence.

Proofreading is essential, if you want to avoid embarrassing yourself in your financial blog or other written communications. Tips for effective proofreading are included in my blogging class.

If you think typos don’t matter, read some of the comments this typo drew from my social media friends.

  • Oooh…That makes me not want to open that e-mail at all.
  • That kind of mistake makes me nuts.
  • Ouch!

In case you couldn’t identify the error

The subject line should have read “See who’s speaking this fall….”

Gosh, I hope I didn’t let any typos slip through in this post.

Note: This post was updated on May 18, 2015 to remove an outdated link.

If you enjoy my #CFA2010 tweets…

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…you may also enjoy my free monthly e-newsletter with practical tips for your client communications. You’ll also find at least one investment or wealth management article. 

I often report on presentations to the Boston Security Analysts Society, so you know you’ll see topics of interest to CFA charterholders.

Topics in the May 2010 issue included

  • Watch out for inflation, says veteran value investor, Jean-Marie Eveillard
    Treasurys vs. Treasuries–Which is the right spelling? 
  • How to guest-blog on personal finance or investing 
  • Poll: How do you sign your business emails? 
  • Last month’s reader poll about ghostbloggers 
  • Morgan Creek Capital’s Yusko on investing

____________________    
Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.  

Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Treasurys vs. Treasuries — Which is the right spelling?

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What’s the right way to spell the plural of Treasury, as in U.S. Treasury bond?

Should it be “Treasurys,” following the rule that the members of the Murphy family become Murphys? Or should it follow the normal rules of creating plurals for words that end in the letter y?

I panicked when I saw “Treasurys” in The Wall Street Journal. Eek! Have I been spelling the word wrong for 20-odd years?

However, I quickly discovered that opinions are split. When I Googled the terms, there were 2.2 million results for Treasuries vs. only 1.5 million for Treasurys. 

The evidence for Treasuries
Here’s the rule that would typically apply. “…if a word ends in a -y that isn’t preceded by a vowel, the plural is formed by omitting the -y and substituting -ies…,” according to Garner’s Modern American Usage. Garner makes an exception for proper names ending in y. He agrees that Murphy becomes Murphys.

Does Treasury qualify as a proper name? Proper names are usually personal names–such as Murphy–or geographic names–such as Washington, D.C. Following this reasoning, Treasuries makes sense.

My friend, financial editor Harriett Magee, found that sources including the Barron’s Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms agreed with Treasuries. Plus, her spell-checker flagged Treasurys as a mistake. 

If you prefer Treasurys…
You’ve got some high-powered company if you stick with Treasurys. When The Wall Street Journal spells it that way, that legitimizes it in my eyes.

If you can’t bear not knowing what’s 100% correct, then use the workaround that Harriett Magee suggests. Refer to Treasury bonds, Treasury notes, and so on. It’s bit wordy, but correct. 

Follow this advice, no matter what you decide
It’s important to use your words consistently in your corporate communications. Pick one spelling and stick with it. 

Consider creating a corporate style guide that lists preferred spellings. It’s a lot easier to have an authoritative source for your company than to try to keep the rules in your head.

My thanks go to David Glen for raising this question when he was a senior vice president at Boston Private Bank.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

 

Note: updated on Nov. 15, 2024. This post was originally published in 2010.

Do you go crazy over misspellings?

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Then you’ll probably enjoy “Ten Words You Should Stop Misspelling” from TheOatmeal.com. I couldn’t stop laughing.

I discovered this through Twitter. This isn’t a business reason to participate in Twitter but a little laughter helps every now and then.