The language of trends
Trends
A trend is the way a situation is developing or
changing. We talk about trends in the financial
performance of a company (sales, profits, costs,
budgets).
Sales fell slightly last quarter.
Profits have risen 3% year-on-year.
We talk about trends in marketing.
We saw some growth in market share last year.
We talk about trends in the economy (inflation, interest
rates, unemployment, house prices).
There has been a steady rise in inflation.
Movement up and down
The most common verbs to describe movement u p are:
go up, rise, increase, grow. The irregular verb forms are:
go up - ivent up - gone up
. .
rzse - rose - rzsen
grow - grezv - groivn
The nouns are rise, increase, growth.
Look at these examples with verbs and nouns.
Sales went up. (no noun form)
Sales have risen. There has been a rise in sales.
Sales increased. There was an increase in sales.
Sales have grown . We've seen some growth in sales.
The most common verbs to describe movement down
are: go down, fall, drop. The irregular verb forms are:
go down - went down - gone dozvn
fall - fell - fallen
The nouns are fall, drop.
Look at these examples with verbs and nouns.
Sales went down. (no noun form)
Sales have fallen. We have seen a fall in sales.
Sales dropped. There ivas a drop in sales.
Verb forms
Remember that the past simple (rose, fell) is used for a
time period that is fiI1ished. The present perfect (have
risen, have fallen) is used for a time period that includes
the present.
Costs rose last yearI in fanuary.
Costs have risen this yearI since fanuary.
1 Read the text for general understandmg.
2 Read it agam and underline the words you don't know.
Check their meanmg.
32
Using adjectives and adverbs
We often want to give more details about the size or
speed of a trend. We can use basic words like small,
large, sloivly, quickly and also the vvords below.
slight - slightly: very small
gradual - gradually: slow and over ~ long period
steady - steadily: slow but contmumg
significant - significantly: noticeable and important
sharp - sharply: large and sudden
Notice the two forms in the example sentences below:
a) adjective+ noun, then b) verb+ adverb.
a There was a slight rise in profits.
b Profits rose slightly.
a There was a small increase in profits last year.
b Profits increased a little last year.
a We have seen steady growth in market share.
b Market share has grown steadily.
Other types of movement
Sometimes there is no trend:
Costs have stayed the same / been stable.
Sometimes there is movement up and down:
Prices have fluctuated all year.
Prices have moved up and down within a range.
Sometimes there is a high point:
Sales peaked / reached a peak in the second quarter and
then fell for the rest of the year.
We compare two points using 'be up / down'.
Profits were 15% down on the previous year.
('on' = compared to)
Other points
Study these sentences and notice the prepositions and
time phrases.
Turnover went up from €38m to €42m - that's an increase
of €41n.
Turnover went up (by) €4rn.
Operating costs ivere stable at around €8.6rn.
There has been a 2% increase in inflation.
Sales went up 1.5% last quarter.
Sales are up 6% year on year.
Here are the sales figures for last month.
3 Highlight words you know passively, but don't use
actively. Choose some to write sentences of your own.
4 Check pronunciation at macmillandictionary.com
 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