Concept in Definition ABC
Miscellanea / / July 04, 2021
By Javier Navarro, in Jul. 2015
The word expenses has two meanings in our language. On the one hand, it refers to the expenses of a judicial process, which are also known as costs ("for the collection of expenses, the route administrative"). It also expresses the part of shared expenses within a community, for example "this month's expenses are higher because the elevator has been repaired." In this way, in both senses the term expenses expresses the idea of economic expense related to an activity or circumstance.
It is quite common to use the concept "ordinary expenses" as opposed to those of character extraordinary.
"At the expense of" as a locution
A locution is a group of words that are presented together and that have a precise meaning. Phrases, set phrases or sayings are part of the language and complement and enrich the vocabulary. When a word is part of a phrase, this peculiarity is usually indicated in the meanings that are mentioned in the dictionary. In fact, the DRAE indicates that the prepositional phrase "at the expense" means to
coast of, on behalf of or in charge of. Thus, if we say "he is forty years old but still lives at the expense of his parents", this means that someone of this age is financially supported by his parents.Doing something at someone's expense usually assumes that one person benefits from the effort of another. Thus, its use in a derogatory sense is very common, since the person who lives at the expense of someone is taking advantage of someone else in some way (his money, his home, or in a sense general). It is not always said at the expense of something in a pejorative way but it can be the circumstance of expressing a fact without any connotation derogatory (they made the trip at the expense of the organization).
The use of phrases is not without confusion. In fact, sometimes "at the expense of" is misused as expression which is equivalent to waiting for something. Thus, with some frequency statements such as the following are made: "the draft of the company is at the expense of the authorization of the manager". In this case, you should say "pending" and not "at the expense of".
The use of phrases in our daily communication
The prepositional phrase "at the expense of" reminds us that in the communication Very different phrases are used everyday. There are adverbial phrases (without rhyme or reason, at face value, maybe or of course). There are verbal phrases (pay attention, be over or give birth), conjunctive phrases (meanwhile or more than), causal phrases (as God commands) or those known as Latin phrases (red-handed, roughly, a priori, among others many).
Issues in Expenses