Alternatives to 'respectively'
Is there any other word I can use instead of respectively?
This word provides me a way to describe a list of items conveniently in a single sentence and hence save space. I've used this many times and there are mainly two reasons I am asking this:
- I'm just looking for alternatives, since I don't want to use the same word everywhere.
- Another small reason is that I find the word respectively a bit long which makes writing short sentences using it difficult.
Since an example of its use was requested:
"Samantha, John and Jack bought apples, mangoes and oranges respectively from the market." (I know it's not a very creative one.)
I also looked for synonyms at thesaurus.com but the only close ones I found were correspondingly and individually. I'm unsure whether these are valid substitutions for the use of respectively as in my example.
Using "respectively" can be confusing as it is, and synonyms such as "correspondingly" only make it worse since we're not used to this. If you absolutely have to use one or the other, use "respectively." However, it is much less confusing to avoid "respectively" altogether, and it doesn't even take up any more space. Here's a better way of wording your example: "At the market, Samantha bought apples, John bought mangoes, and Jack bought oranges." This sentence is the same length as your original sentence (both are 13 words) and it flows much more easily.
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In Strunk and White's Elements of Style, using "respectively" in this manner (and thus using a synonym in this manner) is discouraged:
Respective. Respectively. These words may usually be omitted with advantage. . . . [Example:] The mile run and the two-mile run were won by Jones and Cummings respectively. [Better:] The mile run was won by Jones, the two-mile run by Cummings. (page 57 in the Third Edition)
Following Strunk and White, the way to word your sentence would be: "Samantha bought apples, John bought mangoes, and Jack bought oranges from the market." The problem here is it sounds like Jack was the only one who bought from the market, an the others bought somewhere else. A quick solution is to rearrange the sentence: "At the market, Samantha bought apples, John bought mangoes, and Jack bought oranges."