Words for the Day; please share (page 3)

LoveUniHateExams

I like the following: overtake, take over and takeover.

I wonder if people learning English as a second language have a slight problem with those three?

finallysomepride

Snowbird

I could care less, that one always gets me, I see it here often & I have to stop and think about what do they mean.

I assumed it was an American thing, as here in Australia & my home country New Zealand it's always I couldn't care less

freddo

flammable and inflammable

Why two different words that mean the same thing?

compound complex

Excellent, LoveUni!

Did I get these correct? It can be confusing even for us native-born citizens!

overtake (to catch up with and pass, In the USA, we drivers pass a vehicle; I believe in Australia, when I was driving, I overtook a vehicle.)

take over (verb: to seize control)

takeover (noun: a seizure, as by force)

It's like every day and everyday getting confused.

snowbird

Noxious/0bnoxious - a bit of a difference.

Deadly fumes/smelly socks.

Sylvia

finallysomepride

overtake (to catch up with and pass, In the USA, we drivers pass a vehicle; I believe in Australia, when I was driving, I overtook a vehicle.)

Overtake - used in Australia/NZ

Pass - used in Australia/NZ

Overtook - used in Australia/NZ but only after the overtake/pass has been performed

Just like to add that overtake can have a literal meaning and also a figurative meaning - e.g. if one singer had a single at number one in the charts for 10 weeks and another singer later released a single that stayed at number one for 11 weeks, we could say that single B overtook single A in the amount of time spent at the top of the charts.

A neat way of remembering the difference (and similarity) between the second and third terms: take over is a phrasal verb; takeover is the noun (I looked in an online dictionary for this last point!).

snowbird

Cacao and cocoa.

No difference.

Turks and Caicos.

No connection to the above.

Sylvia

LoveUniHateExams

Gift in English means present.

Gift in German means poison.

compound complex

freddo:

Good question!

I recall this point in connection with propane tanks, formerly marked as inflammable, but due to confusion on the part of the citizenry, the companies marked their tanks flammable. Some took in(flammable) to mean NOT flammable.

I'll look further. The above was an explanation I remember from my youth.

Words for the Day; please share

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