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In the light of lively and widespread interest in developing-country technology it is not surprising that the search for what is 'appropriate' should be bedevilled by semantic confusion. This is, nevertheless, a nuisance which imposes on those who participate in the search and related discussion a tiresome obligation to try to make more than usually clear the meaning of the terms they use. In this regard, it comes naturally to economists to take as 'appropriate' that technology (set of inputs and processes) which would minimise the cost of production of a given volume of a given good in any particular location. This minimum cost can, of course, be calculated either at market or social prices, and the application of the latter — if they accurately reflected the real opportunity costs to the economy of the various factor inputs — would for many identify the optimum technology.