There is a sentence I have read in hundreds of economics papers: “Ceteris paribus, the effect of x on y is positive and significant at the 1% level.”

Translation: “If everything else stays the same, when x goes up, y goes up. We are pretty confident about this.”

The first version is five words longer. It is also completely impenetrable to anyone who did not study economics at university — which is to say, almost everyone.

Economists love Latin phrases. They use them like secret passwords that signal membership of the club. Ceteris paribus. Ex ante. Prima facie. The problem is that the club is very small, and the people who most need to understand your research are not in it.

This is not a call to dumb things down. Precision matters. But precision and accessibility are not opposites. The best economists I have read can explain the same idea clearly to a specialist and a non-specialist without losing the substance.

Next time you reach for “ceteris paribus”, try “all else equal” instead. It takes exactly the same time to type. It loses exactly nothing in translation. And your reader — minister, journalist, or curious graduate — will thank you for it.