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Hey,
Does anyone know the difference? Based upon the dictionary definitions they seem pretty much the same too me, and yet people sometimes write justice and equity..... etc
Examples (google search):
"Justice, Equity And Compassion Versus Violence"
"Climate Justice and Equity - Global Issues"
"Truth, Justice and Equity"
"to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgement and equity"
"social justice and equity are encouraged to examine their own"
Thanks for all your input guys.
equity:
the monetary value of a property or business beyond any amounts owed on it in mortgages, claims, liens, etc.
Actually, equity can mean several things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity
I think the sort of equity that you're getting confused with justice is this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity_%28law%29
Thanks for your input guys.
Hi,Quote:
equity:
the monetary value of a property or business beyond any amounts owed on it in mortgages, claims, liens, etc.
This definition wouldn't make any sense in the snippets I wrote down. How would this equity for example relate to global climate or "Truth and Justice"?
Hey,Quote:
Actually, equity can mean several things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity
I think the sort of equity that you're getting confused with justice is this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity_%28law%29
The Equity I'm talking about is the literary one.
Dictionary.com:
eq·ui·ty /ˈɛkwɪti/
–noun, plural -ties.
1. the quality of being fair or impartial; fairness; impartiality: the equity of Solomon.
2. something that is fair and just.
and here's the problem, :-)
if equity is being just, then shouldn't the two be used interchangeably but not both at the same time (justice and equity) since they mean the same thing? For example, you wouldn't say that you feel both respect and veneration toward someone, you usually say one of them but not both since they mean pretty much the same thing.
Also when you click in wiki on equity (disambiguation) you'll see it provides a link to justice, which means that these two must be the same or extremely similar. In the same manner the word 'fortitude' leads you to wiki about courage since they mean the same thing.
Yeah, so basically summarizing this, if literary equity and justice mean the same thing according to dictionary.com why would anyone write both in the same sentence, as shown in the examples?
Thanks again for all the input guys,
In theory, yes they can mean the same thing; however it is the meaning of justice that ambiguates things though. When you speak of justice do you mean generlized abstract "moral" justice, or do you mean justice as it is enacted by your local law authorities? Since the former is so hard to define universally, you may see that the latter is the one used in most contexts. Because of this, usually everyone is aware that sometimes "law justice" is not "equitable" (as is the case with the lesser treatment of certain individuals by certain regimes throughout the entirety of history and even modern day), thus, in such a case, it is often needed to explcitly distinguish when an event both appeases moral equity and "law justice".
Equity is what you have.
Justice is what you seek when you feel you've lost your equity and you want it back.
Hey everyone,
Thanks for your inputs.
@nthony: The justice I'm talking about is the moral one.
""[...] to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgement and equity."
This is a quote from the bible/ book of proverbs. It talks about morality and rules of 'proper' behavior. I don't think it'd talk about justice and equity as in court but rather as virtues, since its aim is to teach wisdom. I think it'd be quite dumb of it to teach court justice and equity, since it's probably of no importance to anyone except people who are in affair with law, lawyers etc.
Also, synonym.com lists justice as a synonym to equity.
Salem: what do you mean?
Well he means what he said. In other words, perhaps:
Equity is what is just and fair. Justice describes the act of finding equity.
I think I just lack good knowledge of proper English grammar and definitions of the words I often use, but guys, look at this and it could perhaps be much easier to explain.
It's all quite unusual and unparalleled because I looked into the book of proverbs further (which contains that "justice and equity") and it writes:
"I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly"
Congregation and assembly are synonyms as listed by synonym.com
Further, I am now (when not writing this post) listening to an interview with Ken Thompson and he says, "people were apprehensive and afraid [of chess engines]..."
synonym.com lists afraid as a synonym of apprehensive.
Yeah, so I realize there's something wrong with my grammar and vocab, but I'd like to have a good explanation.
Thanks everyone for sharing your knowledge with me.
What I said previously explains why most people use it that way (indeed, justice is often thought of in a legal way), but now that you've revealed that the context is that of the Bible, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. The Bible is man's greatest work of fiction; a book of poetic fiction intertwined with hazy history, ambiguity, and faulty fables. Don't worry, any grammar, meaning, and reasoning that appears odd to you is not your fault, the Bible is intentionally designed that way, its power is in its ability to confuse people into believing it.
A more accurate, less assholish statement would be that the Bible was translated from Aramaic and bits of Hebrew. These are old languages from the Middle East, and given the location and distance in years, some ideas or phrases aren't expressed as neatly in English.Quote:
Originally Posted by @nthony
You are niave and foolish if you believe that even in their native tongues, inscriptions in the Bible are not intentionally ambigous, misleading, redundant, and open to large amounts of interpretation. Both proponents and detractors of it openly admit this. Or maybe I just hit the right nerve.
I strongly suggest that this discussion be kept to the "difference between equity and justice". A phrase like "maybe I just hit the right nerve" is, frankly, trolling. I remind everyone of our forum guidelines:Quote:
You are niave and foolish if you believe that even in their native tongues, inscriptions in the Bible are not intentionally ambigous, misleading, redundant, and open to large amounts of interpretation. Both proponents and detractors of it openly admit this. Or maybe I just hit the right nerve.
8. Messages whose intent is to "Flame," or purposely insult or incite another person, or any portion of a post that "flames" will be deleted.
A much better statement. Hopefully this helps make your reading easier OP. My suggestion would be to look toward the footnotes for clarification, because I find most copies to have rather complete notes. If you feel the Bible is being redundant, it probably is. I'm assuming that English is your first language; though, if it isn't, you may feel more comfortable reading in your language because your comprehension would be better.Quote:
even in their native tongues, inscriptions in the Bible are not intentionally ambigous, misleading, redundant, and open to large amounts of interpretation. Both proponents and detractors of it openly admit this.
> Or maybe I just hit the right nerve.
I only intended to steer the conversation back to the language of the Bible instead of "what it is" because I felt that injecting your own opinions about it was rude and not important to this particular discussion. And for the future: quit being all butthurt over Christianity. I strongly suggest that you prefer tactful statements if you want to talk about sensitive topics.
Hey guys,
Thanks for all your replies.
Whatever bible is (I can't agree on any views since I haven't read it, but am reading it to make my own judgement about it since so many people think what @thony thinks) is rather redundant to this thread since, I'd rather like to know the difference between moral justice and equity and how the two can be used in the same sentence, just like apprehension and fright.
I like salem's definition and citizen's explanation. It makes things quite clear now as I understand the concept.
But now guys, can you explain these two:
"I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly"
"People were apprehensive and afraid [of chess engines]..."
Is using both congregation and assembly a grammatical error, why or why not and if they aren't synonyms somehow, how would you explain this usage?
Also, how can you be both apprehensive and afraid about something?
Probably not, but this may somehow relate to Synonymia although not very likely
--------------------
Ok while writing this post, I did some google search, and now everything is clear and certain :-)
This figure of speech is called hendiadys, and many sources claim it's very common in the bible and writings of Shakespeare particularly. For more info: refer to http://www.answers.com/topic/hendiadys
http://www.geocities.com/bible_trans.../hendiadys.txt
Just for fun, here are examples listed by John Milton in his article that led me to the explanation
his charge and his statutes (Deut.11:1)
children...and the fruit of the womb (Psalm 127:3)
congregation and assembly (Proverbs 5: 14)
Shakespeare has:
the pales and forts of reason (HamletI.iv.32)
the natural gates and alleys of the body (I.v.74)
the flash and outbreak of a fiery mind (II.i.37)
the dark backward and abysm of time (Tempest I.ii.61)
Once again, Thanks everyone for your knowledgeable posts.
Stay well,
Offtopic:"butthurt", "assholish"? I guess "tact" manifests itself in the form of anal euphamisms for you. If anything I have a far more reaching grasp of the situation than most as I was a dedicated Catholic for a large part of my life and have come to understand it and the Bible's intentions, meaning, goals, and downfalls a lot better from both sides of the fence.Quote:
Originally Posted by citizen
Zero-ing back in on synonym use: you can use the aid of Venn diagrams (see below) to explain the relationships better. Often there is a lot of overlap in definition between words (i.e. adjectives), but in almost every case the overlap never 100% (otherwise there would be no need for the overlapping word to exist). Like many languages, English contains many subtleties and nuances that can take on many meanings even amongst similar words, defined by wildcards such as context and usage. As with your example of "apprehensive" and "afraid", apprehension more succinctly portrays a "fear of the future", whereas "afraid" more tellingly depicts the magnitude of the fear (great). So although they both depict a type of fear, using both adjectives together allows you to communicate that the fear is both great in magnitude and directed toward future events.
As you can see in the diagram below, the blue arrow represents the area that describes the state of being "apprehensive" AND "afraid" (the intersection of the two). If you've studied basic algebra and Venn diagrams, you will notice that although a lot of things contained in "apprehensive" are also contained in "afraid", not all things "apprehensive" are "afraid" (i.e. the small orange crescent top, left) and vice-versa (i.e. the large blue crescent bottom, right). Furthermore, "reluctance" is often related to "apprehension", so there exists much overlap between those two as well, but as you can see, not all things "reluctant" are "apprehensive".
The goal in English (and any language) is to most precisely and accurately define what you wish to communicate (the area of intersection), and as you can see in the diagram, for every synonym that you use, you are helping to define this area. However, it also follows from the diagram that synonyms with more overlap amongst them are less likely for creating a more precise area of intersect (the most precise area would be the area of a single point in Universe space). This is why it is more easy to pinpoint such an area when you use adjectives that are definatively unique in meaning to each other. However, the more you adjectives you employ to define something, the more you will encounter increasingly overlapping adjectives (i.e. you can say Fred is tall, smart, and funny, but that does not really describe Fred in his totallity. If you wanted to describe Fred totally, you might find yourself having to use long lists of overlapping adjectives, such as smart, funny, witty, charming, jocular, etc (each of which highly overlap)).
So back to the diagram, you can see why defining something as "apprehensive and afraid" is better than just defining it as "apprehensive" (it narrows down the intersect area to where the blue arrow is pointing), and why defining something as "apprehensive, afraid, and reluctant" is better than just "apprehensive and afraid" (as represented by the area pointed to by the black arrow). You could continue in this fashion adding more adjectives to even further minimize the area of intersection: "apprehensive, afraid, reluctant, and forboding" even further reduces the area to that pointed to by the red arrow. But as I mentioned, this gets increasingly harder to do without using increasingly overlapping adjectives.
If you want to see a real mastery of adjective use, I suggest picking up a good, descriptive novel (no, not the Bible, rather just any ordinary novel that you find interesting), because usually authors have to make such good use of adjectives due to the fact that they are burdened with the task of supplying all the information you would normally obtain through your other 4 senses, exclusively to your eyes through the printed word.