Reality - realty

The two nouns reality (pronounced 're-AL-it-y', IPA: /rɪ 'æ lɪ tɪ/) and realty ('REAL-ty, /'rɪ əl tɪ/) are very similar. They should not, however, be confused.

• Reality is 'the state of being real'. What that might mean can keep philosophers busy for a long time. AWE does not propose to examine the concept further.
  • You are advised not to use the colloquial term 'reality TV' to describe shows which many older academic teachers would deny had anything to do with 'reality' as they understand it.
  • Equally, avoid the term 'reality check' in academic writing. All academic writing should check on reality: it is otiose to say that that is what one is doing.
• Realty is a word now hardly used in Britain, although it was formerly current in legal discussion. In the United States, it has been, since 1916, the usual term for what lawyers in Britain may call 'real property', and everyday language in the UK more commonly knows as 'real estate'. (In 1916, C. N. Chadbourn proposed in The National [i.e. US] Real Estate Journal "that the National Association adopt a professional title to be conferred upon its members which they shall use to distinguish them from outsiders. That this title be copyrighted and defended by the National Association against misuse ... I therefore, propose that the National Association adopt and confer upon its members, dealers in realty, the title of realtor (accented on the first syllable)" (cited in OED s.v. 'realtor').) An American realtor ('REAL-tor', /'rɪ əl te^r/ is what Britons know as an 'estate agent' - a person who or business which trades in land and buildings. "A distinction is made between real property (land and incorporeal hereditaments [= "intangible rights in land"]) and personal property (all other kinds of property)", Law and Martin, 2009.