Should we use “in terms of”?

Question

I have came across this reference: https://www.e-education.psu.edu/styleforstudents/c3_p35.html

This phrase is virtually meaningless, but we often hear it on the news and in bloated speeches. “In terms of” is really just a wordy and sloppy transition—usually an unoriginal disguise for a simple preposition, such as “in,” or a more elegant phrasing, such as “in relation to.” “In terms of the cost, it is high,” is easily revised to “Its cost is high.” Do not use “in terms of,” or do so trembling.

Is the reference really right?

Can I use the following sentence?

The figures are expressed in terms of a percentage/in percentage terms.

If so, the phrase "in terms of" seems not to be referred to relation.

Answer 1

Its primary usage-metric, in terms of issues around English prose, is foundationed on the need to raise the word-count and make the speaker sound clever. "In terms of communities / demographics like politics, academia and the media, it’s a kind of linguistic bindweed: a tough, fast-growing weed smothering everything in sight."

http://overlordoftheuberferal.wordpress.com/2012/09/22/ex-term-in-ate/

Answer 2

I personally think it is a useful usage when discussing large or complex subjects which could be viewed/analysed/approached from a variety of perspectives. In that sort of scenario I might be looking at say, the state of the nation, from the the viewpoint of a poor child and not in terms of GDP.

But like 'obviously', 'literally'et al, it is susceptible to mangling by fools.

Answer 3

I suppose the phrase COULD be just extra meaningless words. Instead of saying, "The figure is expressed in terms of a percentage", you could say, "The figure is expressed as a percentage". But using the phrase "in terms of" adds some emphasis.

The example from the quote, "In terms of cost, it is high", is just poor grammar. What is high? There is no proper antecedent for the pronoun.

Where the phrase is mainly useful is when the object being referred to is ambiguous. Like if I said, "The cost of this war was too high", you might well assume that I meant the financial cost. If I said, "In terms of lives lost, the cost of this war was too high," I clearly mean something very different. I could, of course, reword the sentence to avoid the ambiguous word. Like here I could say, "Too many lives were lost in this war." But perhaps I want to use the word "cost" to express the idea I am trying to convey in the larger context. That would be especially true if I was trying to establish a parallel construct, like, "In terms of dollars spent, the cost of this war was low. But in terms of lives lost, the cost was very high."

Answer 4

Yes you can. Your usage of "in terms of" is completely different. You are specifying the scale on which the quantity is being represented. It's obviously important to specify this so as to make clear the distinction between an absolute scale (pure numbers) and relative scale (percentages and fractions).

The style manual suggests a usage of "in terms of" that seems unneccesary -- where the phrase is merely used as a connecting phrase. I've encountered some equally jarring transitions, such as "If we consider the exchange rate, we find that it has increased", where the initial clause is just a clumsy introduction to the main observation. Note that these constructs are perfectly grammatical, but they just don't reflect good style. They also notch up the often constrained word count in academic papers.