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Introduction to Diction

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Introduction to Diction. Diction concerns the proper definitions and the proper use of words. Good diction means that each word used is the right word used in the right way. In the spoken language, several pairs of similar words that confused and folks always use, often use one word in place of another. There are all kinds of diction confusions in language.

The GMAT loves to catch folks in traps of this sort. So for example, two words that lend themselves to confusion are economic and economical. People confuse these and of course this is very important because the GMAT prepares you for business school. You're gonna be studying all kinds of things about business in business school.

Does that mean you're going to be studying economic things, or economical things? It's very important to understand this split, just given the nature of what the GMAT prepares you for. So, economic means of or related to money, the economy, or economics. So, for example, we might talk about an economic plan, or leading economic indicators, or an economic stimulus package.

Here we're using the word to refer to the economy of an entire country. An, an entire economic system. That's what we're talking about here. So, indeed, in business school you definitely are gonna learn many economic things in business school. Now by contrast, economical means cheap, inexpensive, giving good value or service in relation to the cost of a person, it means someone careful not to waste money.

So we might talk about an economical car, an economical meal, and economical measures. An economical car would be a relatively inexpensive car. An economical meal, that has the implication that the person was able to create a nutritious and satisfying meal, maybe feed a large number of people for relatively low costs, that's what will be meant by an economic meal.

Economic measures for example, in a house say, someone were laid off, or there were some kind of loss of money and they had to figure out ways to save money. They would impose economical measures. They would impose different measures that were cost cutting measures. So in business school you're not gonna study economical things. If you were tight on money, maybe your mother or someone like that would advise you about economical things, okay.

But it's much more about personal finance, about how an individual handles their expenses. Very different from the word economic. So, for example, here's a pretend sentence correction problem. This about this for a second. Pause the video.

Okay. And so in this one, obviously, there are only two choices. We're just looking at this one split, economic versus economical. The CEO of Ergon, a multi-million dollar company, asked the consultant for an blank forecast of the entire sector, so that he could plan business strategy for coming year.

Well, let's think about this. If he's asking for an economic forecast, that would be a forecast of the economy. He wants to know how the economy in this sector is going to perform. And that's going to give them an idea of how to plan business strategy. So that definitely makes sense. If he ask the consultant for an economical forecast, well, that would mean he's asking for a cheap forecast.

Is there any way mister consultant, that you can give me some kind of cheap discount forecast. And that doesn't really sound appropriate here. In other words we're talking about someone in a multi-million dollar company, he's not gonna be looking for a forecast that costs under $10. He's not gonna be looking for something cheap.

He's gonna be looking for something high-quality and accurate that tells him about the economy in his sector. And therefore, economic is perfectly correct and economical is wrong. So in summary. We talked a little about what diction is and how it shows up on the GMAT. And we talked about the difference between economic and economical.

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