This is then subconsciously adapted by many people without fully considering the meaning. ‘Per se’ is originally a Latin term which is commonly misused in English. Find out the true meaning of per se and how you can avoid this easy mistake. Because of this you will sometimes find “on par with” used figuratively for other contexts even outside of headline style and golf. So, when you think of saying something as ‘par for the course,’ and… I think it sometimes has a negative meaning like, this is what was expected and it’s not great.
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- Mental and emotional health is on a par with physical health and financial security when it comes to negative impacts on overall well-being, researchers say.
- No-par stocks have “no par value” printed on their certificates.
- Because of this you will sometimes find “on par with” used figuratively for other contexts even outside of headline style and golf.
- Find out the true meaning of per se and how you can avoid this easy mistake.
A bond’s yield is its effective rate of return when the bond’s price changes. A bond’s yield is calculated as coupon rate / current bond price. The yield for bonds and the dividend rate for preferred stocks have a material effect on whether new issues of these securities are issued at par, at a discount, or at a premium. The misuse of the term is widespread, so it is an easy mistake to make. If you’re here, you can learn how it should be used so you can confidently use it in the future. We’ll cover how it’s often misused, examples of correct usage, and how to use it in a sentence.
You have identified a discrepancy, but once again this is a case where the context is all important.Given that par means average, the goal in golf is to finish using the least number of strokes, so in this case below par is a good result. Therefore something below par is below average, or below the acceptable standard – hence the usual, negative, meaning of the phrase. The shares in a corporation may be issued partly paid, which renders the owner of those shares liability to the corporation for any calls on those shares up to the par value of the shares. No-par stocks have “no par value” printed on their certificates. The Corpus of Contemporary American English finds 370 uses of “on a par with” to 348 of “on par with”, or 322 to 272 if we exclude spoken news, sports magazines, and sports newspapers to reduce those using the term as golf jargon. Less strong a preference as found in ngrams, but still suggesting “on a par with” is the more common form.
Actually, I’m more familiar with people using “sub par” rather than “below par” to describe something as less than expected, etc. If we are to generalise and assume that most people would use an ascending scoring system of measurement such as percentages where 100% represents full marks, then below par would be considered a poor result. If we were talking about soccer, and par was the average number of goals that a team has scored in each of their games, then below par would be a poor result and above par would be a good result. From Old Norse par, from Middle Low German par, from Latin paria (“equals”), neuter plural of pār. Last night I was eating a cookie that wasn’t very good, happened to have the video camera running, and I used the idiom, let’s check it out. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.
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- Using ‘per se’ is a great way to express that something is only in a certain state in a certain context.
- If, when a company issues a new bond, it receives the face value of the security, the bond is said to have been issued at par.
- When securities were issued in paper form, the par value was printed on the face of the security, hence the term “face value.”
- The word par has many definitions, including average or normal amount and usual/accepted standard.
- In golf a hole’s par is the number of strokes considered average or standard to complete it, and being under par means using fewer strokes than average – which happens to be a good thing, because of how the game works.
- Like for example, we’re on vacation, it’s been raining every day, and you say Rachel what’s the weather forecast for today?
Examples of par in a Sentence
The paragraph is interesting isolated from the rest of the article but put into the context of the rest of the text, it’s simply irrelevant. It’s also incorrectly used as in ‘so to speak’ – a kind of long-form bunny quote. These misunderstandings are common in conversation, so you could be forgiven for using them. However, if you’re using it more formally, you will want to ensure you’re using it correctly. Per se is misused when it’s used in place of perfectly good words such as ‘necessarily’. For example, “He wasn’t angry, per se, he just wasn’t happy about it”.
Alternative forms
Par value is static, unlike market value, which fluctuates with credit ratings, time to maturity, and interest rate fluctuations. The par value is assigned at the time the security is issued. When securities were issued in paper form, the par value was printed on the face of the security, hence the term “face value.” ‘Per se’ is a Latin term which literally means, “by itself”, “in itself” or “of itself”. This means you’re taking something out of its context to describe it in its own right. It is often misused in everyday speech It has become a at par meaning in english conversational buzzword.
The word par has many definitions, including average or normal amount and usual/accepted standard. If prevailing yields are lower, say 3%, an investor is willing to pay more than par for that 5% bond. The investor will receive the coupon but have to pay more for it due to the lower prevailing yields. A bond that trades at par has a yield equal to its coupon. Investors expect a return equal to the coupon for the risk of lending to the bond issuer.
In golf a hole’s par is the number of strokes considered average or standard to complete it, and being under par means using fewer strokes than average – which happens to be a good thing, because of how the game works. In accounting, the par value allows the company to put a de minimis value for the stock on the company’s financial statement. Par value is also used to calculate legal capital or share capital. Par can also refer to a bond’s original issue value or its value upon redemption at maturity. In this American English Pronunciation video, we’re going to go over a few idioms relating to golf.
The reason for a bond being issued at a price that is different than its par value has to do with current market interest rates. For example, if a bond’s yield is higher than market rates, then a bond will trade at a premium. Conversely, if a bond’s yield is below market rates, then it will trade at a discount to make it more attractive. Due to the constant fluctuations of interest rates, bonds and other financial instruments almost never trade exactly at par.
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] where stock issuance prices must usually be published. The par value of stock remains unchanged in a bonus stock issue but it changes in a stock split. If a company issues a bond with a 5% coupon, but prevailing yields for similar bonds are 10%, investors will pay less than par for the bond to compensate for the difference in rates. The bond’s value at its maturity plus its yield up to that time must be at least 10% to attract a buyer. They can be issued at a premium (price is higher than the par value) or at a discount (price is below the par value).
In contrast, when someone describes something as below par, it very often means “that was so bad it didn’t even meet the minimum requirements”. Borrowed from German Paar, from Latin par (“equal, like”). Teenager Luke Littler made it through to the fourth round of the PDC World Darts Championship despite a below par performance against Ian White. My guess is, if the use of an article seems inappropriate, that’s because you’re confusing on a par with with above par or up to par. If you are writing for someone in the States, “on par with” is the best choice.
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The par value of stock has no relation to market value and, as a concept, is somewhat archaic.