Depression was once a word speakers and writers used to describe economic strife. But after the Great Depression, speakers and writers needed another word because little compared. Recession became the word to use, and depression was reserved for only the most severe economic woes.

What is a recession?

Well, many economists and pundits say a recession is two consecutive quarters of declines in the gross domestic product. Where did this come from?

It turns out economist Julius Shiskin wrote an article in the New York Times in 1974 that had a list of indicators for a recession. The other rules faded away, but the two-quarters rule soaked itself into the fabric of America. It became a common definition. It entered dictionaries. Economics professors taught it at universities.

Shiskin’s other rules also make it seem we are not in a recession.

You already know where my point is headed. Though technically the U.S. economy isn’t in a recession by that definition, most people agree we are in a recession. The GDP growth slowed, and estimates show the third quarter of 2008 likely had negative 0.3 percent GDP.

It is faulty to measure a 2008 recession using an old 1974 rule. Further, the rule is too simplistic. There are more factors — jobs, prices, income, sales — and many of them matter more to most Americans than simply the nation’s GDP.

Many people have written about the definition of recession lately. This is what I find interesting: In 2008, we watched the definition of recession change right before our very eyes.

Webster’s New International Dictionary Second Edition Unabridged, printed in 1934, is one of those big, thick dictionaries that has its own stand. There is one in my office.

For recession, it says: “1. Act, fact or appearance of receding or retiring; withdrawal. 2. The process by which waterfalls gradually shear back the bed of a stream, because of undercutting at the base and breakage of the rock at the top. 3. The return procession, as clergy and choir after a service.”

You see. Back then, recession’s economic connotation didn’t exist.

G. & C. Merriam Co. printed that dictionary. Today, the descendent is the Merriam-Webster line of dictionaries, available on the Internet at www.merriam-webster.com.

For recession it says: “1. the act or action of receding; withdrawal. 2. a departing procession (as of clergy and choir at the end of a church service). 3. a period of reduced economic activity.”

It is third because it is the newer definition.

My Macintosh computer comes with a 2005 Oxford American Dictionary software program. I type in a word, and it gives me the definition.

For recession, it says: “1. a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters. 2. chiefly astronomy: the action of receding; motion away from an observer.”

The Oxford editors listed the economic definition first because they felt it has the greatest use.

The Economist gives a definition, too: “Broadly speaking, a period of slow or negative economic growth, usually accompanied by rising unemployment. Economists have two more precise definitions of a recession. The first, which can be hard to prove, is when an economy is growing at less than its long-term trend rate of growth and has spare capacity. The second is two consecutive quarters of falling GDP.”

I found an About.com article that pointed to newspapers using the rules of two quarters of GDP decline. That’s false, however. Newspapers resoundingly use the AP Stylebook. For recession, it gives this definition: “A falling-off of economic activity that may be a temporary phenomenon or could continue into a depression.”

Now remember. Don’t lump us newspaper people in with the TV media. I have seen many broadcasters using the two-quarters-of-GDP-decline rule in an effort to argue that a recession is not upon us — or else in an effort to pretend they are economists.

The definition of recession is sheer opinion, when you come down to it. Even former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan said the dreaded R-word back in May.

What’s also interesting is that alternate words are popping up so people can avoid calling it a recession. People are confused by the many attempts to define recession or they want to sidestep the issue, so alternates are needed: downtown, slowdown, contraction.

I think what will happen is as new dictionaries are printed they will avoid the GDP-decline rule and stick to a definition that rings true no matter what year it is — probably something more like Merriam-Webster: “a period of reduced economic activity.”

The nonprofit organization National Bureau of Economic Research is often regarded as the arbiter of whether the country is in a recession. It keeps a measurement called U.S. Business Cycle Expansion and Contractions, and it looks at many factors.

In fact, NBER.org says: “The NBER does not define a recession in terms of two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP.” It provides a 2003 statement the NBER made on how it determines economic turning points. The statement rings true to me.

The key paragraph, which is repeated in subsequent NBER statements, reads: “A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. A recession begins just after the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends as the economy reaches its trough. Between trough and peak, the economy is in an expansion. Expansion is the normal state of the economy; most recessions are brief and they have been rare in recent decades.”

So does the NBER say the United States is in a recession?

Well, that’s not how the organization works. It is retrospective, waiting until sufficient data is available. It waits many, many months. It last proclamation was in July 2003. It said that a trough had ended in November 2001, and it began in March 2001. The NBER was founded in 1920 and measures economic cycles going back to 1854.

Personally, I think the language is in your possession. If you want to call it a recession, call it a recession. If you don’t, then don’t.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial on Oct. 30 gave us this assessment, “Though we’re heading into a recession, how deep the downturn becomes will depend on the policy choices our leaders make.”

Tribune Managing Editor Tim Engstrom’s column appears every Tuesday.