Stating your field of reference

specification 10.68 When you are making it clear what aspect of something you are talking about, you use sentence adverbs formed from classifying adjectives. For example, if you want to say that something is important in the field of politics or from a political point of view, you can say that it is 'politically important'. These adverbs often come in front of an adjective, or at the beginning or end of a clause.

It would have been politically damaging for him to retreat.

Technically, marriage has a legally enshrined status.

We had a very bad year last year financially.

The following is a list of adverbs that can refer to a particular aspect of something:

aesthetically biologically chemically commercially culturally ecologically economically emotionally environmentally

ethically financially geographically ideologically intellectually logically mechanically mentally morally

numerically outwardly physically politically psychologically racially scientifically sexually socially

spiritually statistically superficially technologically visually

PRODUCTIVE FEATURE 10.69 'Speaking' is sometimes added to these adverbs. For example, 'technically speaking' can be used to mean 'from a technical point of view'.

He's not a doctor technically speaking.

He and Malcolm decided that, racially speaking, anyway, they were in complete agreement.

This is a productive feature of English. Productive features are explained in the Introduction.

generalization 10.70 You often want to avoid making a firm, forceful statement, because you are aware of facts that do not quite fit in with what you are saying.

One way of doing this is to use a sentence adjunct which indicates that you are making a general, basic, or approximate statement.

Basically, the more craters a surface has, the older it is.

By and large the broadcasters were free to treat this material very much as they wished.

I think on the whole we don't do too badly.

The following adjuncts are used like this:

all in all all things considered altogether as a rule at a rough estimate basically broadly

by and large essentially for the most part fundamentally generally in essence in general

on average on balance on the whole overall ultimately

Note that you can also use the expressions 'broadly speaking', 'generally speaking', and 'roughly speaking'.

We are all, broadly speaking, middle class.

Roughly speaking, the problem appears to be confined to the tropics.

10.71 You can also use prepositional phrases formed with classifying adjectives, such as 'in financial terms' or 'from a political point of view'. Similar prepositional phrases can be formed using the nouns related to these adjectives, for example using 'money' instead of 'financial': 'in money terms', 'in terms of money', 'with regard to money', or 'from the money point of view'.

Life is going to be a little easier in economic terms.

That is the beginning of a very big step forward in educational terms.

This state was a late developer in terms of commerce.

This is a productive feature of English. Productive features are explained in the Introduction.

10.72 Another way of saying something like 'with regard to money' is 'money-wise'. You add the suffix '-wise' to a noun referring to the aspect you mean. This is generally used to avoid the creation of long phrases.

Not to have visited the company's plant in Frankfurt or the American subsidiary with put you at a disadvantage status-wise.

We are mostly Socialists vote-wise.

This is a productive feature in American English, but is not so common in British English. Productive features are explained in the Introduction.