Wikipedia:Respectively

This is the article on "respective(ly)" from Fowler's Modern English Usage (1926), lightly reworded and reformatted.^[1]

This is an essay on the overuse of "respectively".

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community.

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Use of respective(ly)

respective(ly). Delight in these words is a wide-spread but depraved taste; like soldiers and policemen, they have work to do, but, when the work is not there, the less we see of them the better; of ten sentences in which they occur, nine would be improved by their removal. The evil is considerable enough to justify an examination at some length; examples may be sorted into six groups:

in which the words give information needed by sensible readers;
in which they give information that may be needed by fools;
in which they say again what is said elsewhere;
in which they say nothing intelligible;
in which they are used wrongly for some other word; and
in which they give a positively wrong sense.

A. Right uses

There are two other chapters in which Strauss and Debussy take respectively a higher and a lower place than popular opinion accords them.

But for respectively, the reader might suppose that both composers were rated higher on some points and lower in others; respectively shows that higher goes with Strauss, and lower with Debussy.

...that training colleges for men and women respectively be provided on sites at Hammersmith and St Pancras.

But for respectively, the reader might think that both colleges are for both sexes; respectively shows that one is for men and the other is for women.

This makes it quite possible for the apparently contradictory messages received from Sofia and Constantinople respectively to be equally true.

Respectively shows that the contradiction is not, for instance, between earlier and later news from the Near East, but between news from one and news from the other town.

B. Foolproof uses

The particular fool for whose benefit each respectively is inserted follows the example:

Final statements are expected to be made today by Mr Bonar Law and M. Millerand in the House of Commons and the Chamber of Deputies respectively.

the reader who does not know which gentleman or which Parliament is British, or who may imagine both gentlemen talking in both Parliaments.

The Socialist aim in forcing a debate was to compel the different groups to define their respective attitudes.

the reader who may expect a group to define another group's attitude.

It is very far from certain that any of the names now canvassed in Wall Street will secure the nomination at the respective Republican and Democratic Conventions.

the reader who may think that Republicans and Democrats hold several united conventions.

We have not the smallest doubt that this is what will actually happen, and we may discuss the situation on the footing that the respective fates of these two Bills will be as predicted.

the reader who has read the prediction without sufficient attention to remember that it is double.

C. Tautological uses

After each is underlined the expression or the fact that makes respective superfluous.

Having collected the total amount, the collector disburses to each proper authority its respective quota.
He wants the Secretary for War to tell the House in what countries they are at present stationed, and the numbers in each country respectively.
Madame Sarah Bernhardt and Mrs Bernard Beere respectively made enormous hits in 'As in a Looking Glass'..
The October number of the Rassegna is chiefly remarkable for the respective articles of the Marchese Crispolto Crispolti on Pope Benedict V and the War and by the Marchese Colonna di Cesarò on Zionism and the Entente..
In the Preussische Jahrbücher for May, the most noteworthy articles are those respectively by Werner Weisbach, who writes on Germany in modern Italian political criticism, and by Professor Hans Delbruck, who contributes an extremely interesting comparison between...

D. Unintelligible uses

The writing-room, silence-room, and recreation-room have respectively blue and red armchairs.

A certain estate is for sale; its grounds border three main roads, namely, Queen's, Belmont, and King's respectively.

E. In place of other words

The writers of these mean no more than both (to be placed in the second after Fellow).

The two nurses' associations respectively organized in Scotland make no secret of their membership.

He was a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, and of the University of London respectively.

F. Reversal of sense

It is recognized that far too little is known by Englishmen and Americans about their respective countries; in this country, there is only one lectureship on American history, and that is at King's College, Strand.

This can only mean that Englishmen know too little of England, and Americans know too little of America—which is no doubt true, but is not the truth that the writer wished to convey; 'about each other's countries' would have served both writer and reader.

The simple fact is that respective(ly) are words seldom needed, but that pretentious writers drag them in at every opportunity for the air of thoroughness and precision they are supposed to give to a sentence.