These words refer to a set or habitual technique for performing a task. Method suggests a fairly elaborate group of techniques and stresses efficiency or accuracy as its goal. Way , by contrast, is much more general, since it can refer either to a single technique or to a complex operation; it is also more informal and carries no suggestions about the technique or operation itself, positive or negative.

• The way many students study is appalling; they lack any sense of method .

Way does have a special use that refers to someone’s characteristic approach to a problem: Don’t mind him; it’s just his way . It may even suggest a whole life style: John’s way of doing things; a paranoid’s way of taking criticism; the democratic way of settling arguments.

Procedure and system relates to the elaborate efficiency implied by method rather than to the characteristic style that may be suggested by way. Both stress an even greater elaborateness than method. Procedure , the most formal of all these words, suggests an orderly cut-and-dry set of methods established by a person or organization for coping with routine or bureaucratic details: a procedure for calculating income tax; a procedure for putting a bill through Parliament. System may refer to a whole bundle of procedures established by a person or organization, written or unwritten; it emphasizes the meticulous working out of every detail: the system of selecting national servicemen. Unlike procedure , it can be used pejoratively, in which case it refers to a conservative, entrenched establishment: every genius who ever had to fight the system . It can refer neutrally to any functioning entity: the body’s circulatory system . It can also apply to any elaborate scheme, whether functional or not: a system for beating the bookmakers.

Manner , fashion and mode refer more to a characteristic style than to an elaborate method , procedure or system . All three may be used merely as less informal substitutes for way, with mode approaching excessive formality. Each, however, has special nuances all its own. Manner may suggest the good or bad carrying out of a method or the characteristic conduct of someone: results that depend as much on the manner of executing the plans as on the plans themselves; a querulous manner of speaking. Fashion may also stress execution, but is strongly influenced by its other meanings pertaining to those styles of living currently in favour: a new fashion in hairstyles. Mode suggests the choice of one category out of many: public demonstrations as a mode of venting frustration and hostility. It is especially used in culture contexts: a mode of writing in which normal syntax is suppressed to give the effect of chaotic thought processes.