Tag Archives: easily confused words

economic / economical: what’s the difference?

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Robert D. E. Senior

The following explanation was sourced from http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic9464.html and posted by Yankee on 12th June 2006: If something is economical, it saves money or resources. It’s similar in meaning to “not wasteful” eg. “An economical car uses a minimum amount of gasoline (petrol) to drive a … Continue reading →

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electric / electrical: what’s the difference?

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Robert D. E. Senior

This was sourced from http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1620395 and adapted from the contribution by Imber Ranae dated 1st december 2009: electric = runs on electricity eg. electric car, electric fan, electric appliance, electric guitar etc. It’s also used metaphorically to mean: exciting, energetic eg. the atmosphere at the U2 … Continue reading →

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higher / further education: what’s the difference?

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Robert D. E. Senior

The following explanation is taken almost verbatim from Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Further_education “Further education is a term mainly used in connection with education in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It is post-compulsory education (in addition to that received at secondary school), that is distinct from the … Continue reading →

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horrific / horrendous / horrible / horrid: what’s the difference?

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Robert D. E. Senior

These words are often used synonymously but there are some differences worth bearing in mind. First of all, according to http://thesaurus.com/browse/horrendous they go in decreasing degree of horror: horrific, horrendous, horrible, horrid. Indeed if we check the British National Corpus at http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/ we can see that there are 12 entries for “horrific … Continue reading →

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among / amongst: what’s the difference?

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Robert D. E. Senior

There is no difference at all between the meaning and use of these two options. Speakers of AE (= American English) will use ‘among’ for sure, but speakers of BE and other variations of English could use either. Writers of … Continue reading →

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