If I am sending an email with the subject line:
Look at how spot on the Economist was with the Real Estate Bubble
In the body of the email, I quote 2 paragraphs from the article and write a comment like so:
—- Begin Email Body
This article was written in 2005.
Key passages:
NEVER before have real house prices risen so fast, for so long, in so
many countries. Property markets have been frothing from America,
Britain and Australia to France, Spain and China. Rising property
prices helped to prop up the world economy after the stockmarket
bubble burst in 2000. What if the housing boom now turns to bust?According to estimates by The Economist, the total value of
residential property in developed economies rose by more than $30
trillion over the past five years, to over $70 trillion, an increase
equivalent to 100% of those countries' combined GDPs. Not only does
this dwarf any previous house-price boom, it is larger than the global
stockmarket bubble in the late 1990s (an increase over five years of
80% of GDP) or America's stockmarket bubble in the late 1920s (55% of
GDP). In other words, it looks like the biggest bubble in history.
http://www.economist.com/node/4079027?story_id=4079027
Wow……talk about prescient.
—- End Email Body
Is my use of 'prescient' here correct or incorrect? Why or why not? I would love an explanation about the structure of the language and how it applies in this case.
Best Answer
You can use either "prescient" or "prescience". "Prescient" describes the writer of the passage; "prescience" describes the content of the passage: different word => different focus.
The only change I'd suggest is your last sentence:
There are two exclamations here. There's nothing wrong with using two exclamation marks (one for each, not, e.g., "Wow, talk about {prescient/prescience}!!"). It's an informal email.