Demand vs quantity demanded

From the Washington Post:

Backing up Obama's position against Clinton's proposal to suspend the 18.4-cent-per-gallon tax for the summer is a slew of economists who argue that the proposal, first offered by Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, would be counterproductive. They argue that cutting the tax would drive up [quantity] demand[ed] for gas at a time when the supply is tight, which would mean that the price at the pump would drop by much less than 18 cents per gallon.

The [bracketed terms] have been added for correctness.

Comments

[odograph]

Heh. Some economist tried to steal the English language long ago, and it should be obvious it did not stick.

A more humble thinker would have left the word "demand" (as used) alone and invented his own, new, word for what he was trying to say.

Shorter: Linguistic "correctness" is defined by usage, a fact that has always troubled the would-be world-changers.

[John Whitehead]

Odo,

Without the distinction, between demand and quantity demanded sloppy thinkers will forever be making the mistake that lower prices might lead to higher prices.

If everyone used an engineering term incorrectly and made analytical mistakes as a result, would you balk?

Humbly,

John Whitehead

[joshua corning]

Demand vs quantity demanded

Hypothetical Demand vs Demand

fixed for correctness.

[John Whitehead]

Odo and Joshua,

I dunno guys, thousands of economics students are taught the distinction between these terms every year. Cumulatively, millions have been taught the economic vocabulary. Your knee jerk reaction against it leads me to wonder if it is more than anti-economist backlash, but something more personal. In case it IS personal, and just to keep up, I think you are both ugly.

[Bates]

I think the distinction is very important, but then again I majored in economics. It's one of those things that makes me cringe when I hear it.

[tom]

This Washington Post reporter is not an economist, but he plays one in the newspaper. These are the same clowns who tell us that they have editors and only they provide correct information, while the blogs are the source of misinformation. Yeah right.

[odograph]

It seems to me your argument is on the very wrong foot.

English language usage was originally "demand" for what the economists call "quantity demanded", yes?

If you'd left it alone, and invented something like Joshua's "Hypothetical Demand" then you could have had precision without word-stealing, yes?

(I understand that it wasn't you personally, that the word thief is probably dead and buried, but you are ... an accomplice!)

[odograph]

Heh, maybe it would amuse you to know that one of my first experience with redefined language was at a "free" Werner Erhart lecture. I quickly caught on that certain English words were being used differently, and for very special in-group building purposes.

For that reason ;-), I've always found language redefinitions as somewhat cult-like, and suspected that they are mind-share grabs.

[joshua corning]

I agree that a distinction is needed.

But the Common usage of the word "demand" is quantity demanded. Perhaps the less common usage of the word demand should be the one to get the added word....my proposal would be to call the less common usage "hypothetical demand" and simply let "demand" mean "quantity demanded"

And no this is not personal...if Tim wrote about this we would jump on him just as vigorously as we jump on you.

By the way people will continue to use demand they way they like to and economists will continue to use demand the way they do and there is nothing you or i can do to ever change that.

But still it is fun whine about.

[odograph]

It's especially fun because the word-thief's gambit failed half-a-century ago. John doesn't have a chance.

[Alan Dove]

Oh, sure, blame the victims. I have a professional revulsion for misapplied technical terms, so I'm definitely on the economists' side here. They actually seem to have made the "right" terminology choice way back when these terms were developing. It's the rest of the world that's screwed it up, conflating exactly the concepts the economists were trying to distinguish.

If I understand the issue correctly, economists use "demand" to mean "What people want," and "quantity demanded" to mean "What people will buy at a particular price." So it seems to me that economists are using "demand" pretty much the way everyone else uses the word, whereas "quantity demanded" is a specific term of art.

Unfortunately, ignorant commentators seem to have tried to "simplify" the discussion by shortening "quantity demanded" to "demand." Now, folks who've been steeped in this error are arguing that this is in fact the "right" way, and the economists are wrong. Who's the real thief?

It's the same blunder that leads so many to think of a "quantum leap" as a major step (instead of an infinitessimally small one) and consider the "epicenter" to be the absolute center of something, rather than a point considerably removed from the center.

[odograph]

Don't "quantum" and "epicenter" follow the "go to the Latin" rule? That is they avoid confusion by avoiding word-theft.

[gormk]

Alan – Actually “demand” refers to a function; a rule that says what quantity demanded would be at different prices; whereas “quantity demanded” is the specific value of that function for a specific price value. The demand function also takes other arguments such as substitute prices, income, preference parameters, that may shift or rotate the demand schedule, and thereby change the relationship between quantity demanded and price, but are held constant in evaluating quantity demanded at a particular price point. Your use of the word “want” to distinguish demand and quantity demanded is not exactly correct. The demand function tells us the quantities of a good that consumers both “want” and are “able to pay for” at various prices.

A butcher’s analogy: “demand” is as a sausage machine, whereas “quantity demanded” is number of sausages. Price, therefore, is one of the main ingredients (inputs) into the sausage-making. [Analogy courtesy of my PhD microeconomics instructor.]