in this connection

English edit

(formal, sometimes proscribed, dated) In connection with this subject; in this regard.
- 1895, Mabel Osgood Wright, “To The Reader”, in Birdcraft: A Field Book of Two Hundred Song, Game, and Water Birds:
  We Americans have not yet thoroughly acquired the habit of regarding the museums as great picture books, and yet such they are, and in this connection I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. J. A. Allen, […] for much valuable assistance and advice in connection with this book.
- 1995, “Consumer Research”, in Hans Jeleby, editor, Facts and Views on Nordic Consumer Policy[:] An Anthology‎^[1], →ISBN, page 169:
  Information technology contributes to making society and the individual person's everyday more transparent than earlier. Bulk information concerning the individual is collected at an apparently uncontrollable number of points in society. In this connection there is a continuous need for mapping out the occurrence and the possibility of abuse of the electronic traces consumers leave behind in society.

This phrase is sometimes proscribed,^[1] as an instance of the themes that writers should avoid wordiness and triteness. But many English speakers do not consider this phrase to be particularly wordy or trite, and the available alternatives aren't much shorter. With either phrase, in this connection or in this regard — as with many other turns of phrase as well — perhaps the best usage advice is merely to make sure not to overuse it conspicuously.
"In this connection" was more common than alternatives like "in connection with (this, that, etc)" and "in this regard" in the 19th and early 20th century, but began to decline in popularity after about 1920; "in this regard" overtook it in the 1960s and is more common today.^[2]