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I just made the mistake of using "Auditory" in the context of auditing. For example:

"We need to include that information, for auditory purposes."

After I sent my e-mail, I was embarrassed to find out that "auditory" refers to hearing.

Ahmed
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MrMusAddict
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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – tchrist Aug 20 '18 at 20:01
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    It should be noted that the derivation of "audit" is from the Latin for "to hear", so "auditory" is not technically incorrect (though it would certainly confuse many). – Hot Licks Sep 20 '18 at 02:27
  • Just use audit. For audit purposes. On a side note, I'm not sure that the comma is justified. And the hyphen in email certainly isn't. – RegDwigнt Oct 20 '18 at 04:20

2 Answers2

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Auditing

As a Native North American English speaker I would say, "We need to include that information, for auditing purposes."

Source http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/participle.htm

Source -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participle

Source - https://www.englishgrammar.org/participles/

Source - https://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/present_participle.htm

"Auditing" in this case is used as a present participle. "Audited" can be used as the past participle.

For example, "Our data is stored in audited databases." And, "E & Y reviewed the auditing logs."

In my experience this usage is common in the Eastern United States.

Lumberjack
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    That's a noun, not an adjective! Our purposes are more auditing than yours? Or are yours very auditing? Doesn't smell like an adjective to me: it's a noun. Not that he needs an adjective. – tchrist Aug 17 '18 at 20:09
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    @tchrist However if I say "Do you require that for medical or auditing purposes?", is it the case that "medical" qualifies as an adjective, but "auditing" doesn't? – WS2 Aug 17 '18 at 21:03
  • @tchrist I think it is technically a participle, which I believe can be used as an adjective. http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/participle.htm – Lumberjack Aug 17 '18 at 23:40
  • I’m sorry, but your reference is wrong. To say that “participles” can be part of multiword verbs or be nouns or be adjectives is using that word in a highly nonstandard way that runs counter to modern analysis, where by “modern” I mean anything within living memory of anyone alive today. That’s just saying that a participle is any -ing word deriving from the base form of a verb. That’s a morphological criterion, not one that describes a word’s part of speech the way verb, noun, adjective and all do. It’s no adjective because it doesn’t let you do adjective things to it, (continued) – tchrist Aug 18 '18 at 00:23
  • (...) and it lets you do things to it that you can only to do nouns. It's not grammatical to say the purposes are auditing. But you can use the adjective intensive to modify auditing: “Intensive auditing is our business” shows that that’s a noun there, and should also do so saying “This is for intensive auditing purposes” meaning for purposes of intensive auditing. This is a noun–noun compound, like in a living wage being a wage for living. This is a purpose for auditing, so it has to be a noun. Notice also how you can have very intensive but not very auditing. – tchrist Aug 18 '18 at 00:30
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    One last demo that this is not an adjective here: flipping the first two words, both putative adjectives by your account, in “intensive auditing purposes”, produces “auditing intensive purposes” which means something completely different grammatically. It parses differently. Changing “great green dragon” into “green great dragon” may sound funny, but it doesn’t require a radical reassignment of parts of speech the way the other does. Hence, the first is not a pair of adjectives. – tchrist Aug 18 '18 at 00:38
  • Check this post Is this noun used as an adjective?. Nice explanation on noun adjunct :) – Ubi.B Aug 18 '18 at 03:08
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I'm not recommending the phrasing when I say 'auditorial' works in your example sentence:

We need to include that information, for auditorial purposes.

I'm sure there are better ways to put it, depending on context and intention. For example:

  1. We need to audit that information.
  2. That information must be included for the audit.
  3. Etc.

From OED:

auditorial, adj.
...
2. Of or pertaining to auditors of accounts; connected with an audit.

In your example, the purposes are connected with an audit.

JEL
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