The language of trends

Trends Using adjectives and adverbs

A trend is the way a situation is developing or We often want to give more details about the size or
changing. We talk about trends in the financial speed of a trend. We can use basic words like small,
performance of a company (sales, profits, costs, large, sloivly, quickly and also the vvords below.
budgets). slight - slightly: very small
Sales fell slightly last quarter. gradual - gradually: slow and over ~ long period
Profits have risen 3% year-on-year. steady - steadily: slow but contmumg
We talk about trends in marketing. significant - significantly: noticeable and important
sharp - sharply: large and sudden
We saw some growth in market share last year.
Notice the two forms in the example sentences below:
We talk about trends in the economy (inflation, interest
a) adjective+ noun, then b) verb+ adverb.
rates, unemployment, house prices).
a There was a slight rise in profits.
There has been a steady rise in inflation.
b Profits rose slightly.
Movement up and down a There was a small increase in profits last year.
The most common verbs to describe movement u p are: b Profits increased a little last year.
go up, rise, increase, grow. The irregular verb forms are:
a We have seen steady growth in market share.
go up - ivent up - gone up b Market share has grown steadily.
. .
rzse - rose - rzsen
grow - grezv - groivn Other types of movement
The nouns are rise, increase, growth. Sometimes there is no trend:
Look at these examples with verbs and nouns. Costs have stayed the same / been stable.
Sales went up. (no noun form) Sometimes there is movement up and down:
Sales have risen. There has been a rise in sales.
Prices have fluctuated all year.
Sales increased. There was an increase in sales.
Prices have moved up and down within a range.
Sales have grown . We've seen some growth in sales.
Sometimes there is a high point:
The most common verbs to describe movement down
are: go down, fall, drop. The irregular verb forms are: Sales peaked / reached a peak in the second quarter and
then fell for the rest of the year.
go down - went down - gone dozvn
fall - fell - fallen We compare two points using 'be up / down'.

The nouns are fall, drop. Profits were 15% down on the previous year.
('on' = compared to)
Look at these examples with verbs and nouns.
Sales went down. (no noun form) Other points
Sales have fallen. We have seen a fall in sales. Study these sentences and notice the prepositions and
Sales dropped. There ivas a drop in sales. time phrases.

Verb forms Turnover went up from €38m to €42m - that's an increase

of €41n.
Remember that the past simple (rose, fell) is used for a
Turnover went up (by) €4rn.
time period that is fiI1ished. The present perfect (have
Operating costs ivere stable at around €8.6rn.
risen, have fallen) is used for a time period that includes
There has been a 2% increase in inflation.
the present.
Sales went up 1.5% last quarter.
Costs rose last yearI in fanuary. Sales are up 6% year on year.
Costs have risen this yearI since fanuary. Here are the sales figures for last month.

1 Read the text for general understandmg. 3 Highlight words you know passively, but don't use
2 Read it agam and underline the words you don't know. actively. Choose some to write sentences of your own.
Check their meanmg. 4 Check pronunciation at macmillandictionary.com

32
 14 THE LANGUAGE OF TRENDS
Exercises

14.1 Match graphs 1-6 with sentences a-f. 14.4 Complete the sentences with these prepositions:
80 at, for, from, in, of, on, to.
1 2
1 There was a 14% increase profits.
60
40
__
............
.........._~-
-
2 Turnover went up
an increase
E2Sm
around 15°/o .
3 Market share remained the same
€28. 7m. That's

around 20°/o.
20 4 Sales are up 10°/o year- -year.
last year this year last year this year 5 Here are the sales figures last month.
80 3 4
14.5 Complete sentence b so that it has the same
60 meaning as sentence a .
1a Costs increased significantly last year.
40
b There was a ..;J.9' 'La1 ' in costs last year.
20 2a Profits dropped sharply last year.
last year this year last year this year
b There was a in profits last year.
5 6 3a Inflation has risen gradually for the last two years.
b For the last two years there has been a
in infla t ion.
4a Prices have fa llen slightly this year.
b We have seen a in prices this year.
Sa Market share has grown steadily over the last f ew years.
last year this year last year this year
b We have seen __ __ in our market share.
a Sales peaked in the first quarter of this year.
14.6 Joelle is reviewing the financial performance of
b Energy costs increased signif icantly last year.
her company over the last two years. Complete the
c Unemployment has risen steadily for the last two years.
text with words from the box.
d Share prices have fallen slightly this year.
e Interest rates have stayed the same for two years.
advertising budget final figure 20% down
f Profits dropped sharply last year. increased significantly percentage terms
14.2 Complete the sentences with the correct form sharp drop starting to rise within a range
of the verb in brackets. It may be necessary to change
the verb to a noun. Last year was better than this year. If we begin by
1 Sales vt '?..<.. '-!P . (go up) 12°/o last year. looking at annual turnover, it was around €40m last
2 Sales ____ (go up) 12°/o t his year. year, while this year it's €32m. That means in
___ . .... • . we're 2_
1
3 Profits _ (rise) slightly last year. _ on last year.
4 Profits _ _ _ (rise) slightly this year. Luc kily, the management team realized it would be a
5 There has been a slight ___ (rise) in profits d ifficult year and every d epartment was told to control
t his year. its costs. Our 3 __ -· for example, was cut
6 In .t he last two years our market share from €5.8m to €2.1m. We also stopped replacing staH
(grow) steadily. who left the company. That saved us a lot of money,
7 Last year our market share (grow) steadily. but it meant that the workload of the remaining people
4
_ _ . One thing that was very difficult to
8 In the last two years there has been steady
control this year was the cost o f energy: oil pric es
_ (grow) in our market share.
moved up and down 5 _of $70 to $ 120 a
9 Turnover __ (fall) since January.
barrel. Luckily our raw material costs stayed more or
10 Turnover • ...... (fall) in January.
less the same.
11 In January we saw a significant __ (fa ll) in
Because of our success in con trolling costs we did
turnover.
still manage to make a small profit this year. The 6
12 Costs usually . (increase) every year.
_ will probably be around €2m - not too
14.3 Underline the correct words in italics. bad but it's a 7 compared to last year.
Looking ahead to next year, the business environment
1 Costs have stayed/rested more or less the same.
continues to be difficult. And we have a new challenge
2 Sales had a peak I reached a peak in March.
- inflation is now 8- - -
3 M arke t share has been stability I stable.
4 There has been a 2% addition /increase in inflation.
5 Turnover fell/fell down 5°/o last month . See page 146 for some discussion topics.

Money and finance 33