Reflections on Versus

Reflections on Versus Reflections on Versus Reflections on Versus By Maeve Maddox The following sentence from an editorial about a money-saving measure taken by our local county government caught my eye: Its about cost-effective verses cheap. The misspelling of versus was the eye magnet, but then I started thinking about the use of the word itself. I dont hear the word versus or see it written out very often anymore. It may still have currency among sports writers, but I dont read the sports page, so I cant say. As a legal term, versus has been in the language since the 15th century: preposition denoting action of one party against another, from L. versus turned toward or against When I was in school, versus was commonly abbreviated as vs and italicized: McCulloch vs Maryland (1819) Miranda vs Arizona (1966) Now the usual practice is to abbreviate versus as v. and not italicize it: Roe v. Wade (1973) Gregg v. Georgia (1976) When it was still being written vs, the abbreviation was read as versus. Nowadays the practice is to pronounce the v as the letter name: Gregg [VEE] Georgia (1976) By now, many younger English speakers may be unaware that the v. in the name of a court case stands for versus. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the General category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Writing a Reference Letter (With Examples)80 Idioms with the Word TimeParataxis and Hypotaxis