What are Pros and Cons?

Decisions should be made based on factors that seem to be in favor of one choice and factors that are reasons not to go in that direction. It may be enough to understand that “pros” and “cons” are simply another way of saying “for” and “against.” You can also think of this as positive aspects and negative aspects.

Suppose you are trying to decide whether to wear a particular type of shoe when going for a walk. Pros in favor of one type might be: good support for walking; comfort; won’t cause the feet to sweat. Cons might be: they don’t look good; they are old and don’t provide support. In fact, we use “pros” and “cons” sometimes when we are just deciding if we should go for a walk. If you say to yourself, “I need the exercise,” you have just stated one of the pros. If it’s raining hard, that could be a con.

Word History

As with many words we use in the English language, the terms “pro” and “con” come from Latin. Dictionaries explain the original phrase as “pro et contra.” This means exactly what we stated in the beginning – for and against. For hundreds of years we have shortened this a bit to “pro” and “con.”

We come face to face with the idea of “pro and con” many times during our daily activities. In addition to the shoe decision and walk decision mentioned above, we may even start our day with a pro-and-con decision. Suppose we are lying in bed and we don’t have a job or a family task that requires us to get up immediately. We may say to ourselves that, when it comes to getting up right away, one of the “pros” would be more free time on a day off. A “con” might be not getting a few extra minutes of snooze time.

The idea of “pros” and “cons” has also been used in academic and business decisions. For example, in debate clubs it’s essential to be very clear about the “pros” and “cons” of whatever the issue happens to be. When a company is making a decision about expanding to another location, for example, they may have managers list the “pros” and “cons” of making the move. If establishing a new location would be expensive but would probably pay that amount back in five years or 10 years, we have a “pro” and a “con” in the same sentence. This type of reason and decision-making is also quite popular in politics. Benjamin Franklin (or some other famous forefather) is well known for listing “pros” in one column on a piece of paper and listing “cons” in another column. More of one than the other can provide the solution.