Muriel Vasconcellos Dec 24, 2015:

Deprecated word In terminology theory, a deprecated word is one you aren't supposed to use for a variety of reasons. Dictionaries show them by listing them and referring you to another entry. Reasons can be: it's offensive, it's a competing term, it includes a person's name, it's a geographic reference, etc. Example: 'mongolism' is deprecated because it suggests that people with the condition look like people from Mongolia. ('Down syndrome' is better but not ideal because it includes a person's name. For a while 'trisomy 21' was promoted, but that's not completely accurate.)

Karen Vincent-Jones (X) Dec 24, 2015:

The plot thickens... It gets worse - what is a 'deprecated word'?

Muriel Vasconcellos Dec 24, 2015:

@Robert - No problem My Merriam-Webster software lists it as a deprecated word (if it's listed and gives no definition but refers you to another word, in this case progressiveness', it means that it's deprecated) but obviously the version installed on my computer is out of date.

Robert Carter Dec 24, 2015:

@Muriel It wasn't an attempt to get you to agree with my entry, just with the point about acceptability.
I do hope I didn't offend you in any way, that wasn't my intention at all. Saludos.

Muriel Vasconcellos Dec 24, 2015:

@Robert OK. My version is older. You win!

Robert Carter Dec 24, 2015:

@Muriel Just a final word on acceptability: there are over 270,000 hits on Google for the word, if that's any indication of its acceptability. In any case, even if there only 27, you'd have to weigh that against the relative use of the Spanish term, and decide whether it's a neologism or whether there's a better option in the current lexicon.

Now, I don't know if this is the same actual dictionary as the one you're citing as it's an online version, all the same, it is the Merriam-Webster site:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/progressivity

All the same, I do wish you a very happy holiday weekend, Muriel.

Robert Carter Dec 24, 2015:

@Muriel No, I don't think I am ignoring that element, just mentioning that it's the "progressivity" of the reduction.
To your point about accepted English, I myself imagined it was probably an economist's jargon word, but I've just found it in my 20-year-old Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary, under progressive. Amazing dictionary. Entry no. 6 reads: of or pertaining to a form of taxation in which the rate increases with certain increases in taxable income.
By the way, I don't know if you've come across this site before, but I only just found out about it a couple of weeks ago:
http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/
It's the Brigham Young University's Corpus of Contemporary American English, a very useful tool indeed.

Muriel Vasconcellos Dec 24, 2015:

@ Robert I am not able to read the sentence the way you do. The element of 'reduction' can't be ignored, IMO. (BTW, 'progressivity' isn't an accepted word in English. Merriam-Webster gives a cross-reference to 'progressiveness'.)

Robert Carter Dec 24, 2015:

@Muriel Re your post, I'm not sure that's what it means. I think the progressivity involved refers to some kind of sliding scale of contributions, where perhaps the employer has to pay more in contributions if the wages it pays are lower, or alternatively, it could be that larger companies have to pay more proportionately than smaller ones. At any rate, given that the text says "se modificaron....el alcance y la progresividad de la reducción", I don't think there can be any question that it is saying that the scope and the "progresividad" have been changed, not that a progressive reduction is being made. I hope I've understood your point correctly. Saludos.

Robert Carter Dec 23, 2015:

@Karen I agree, it is rather incomprehensible. From a strict reading, it says the progressivity of the reduction in contributions was altered several times. We have no way of knowing what this means in real terms without further context.

Karen Vincent-Jones (X) Dec 23, 2015:

Difficult to understand I have difficulty with this kind of negative sentence this - does it mean that employer social security contributions were progressively reduced on several occasions, or that their progressivity was reduced?