A perplexing sentence

Question

He comes from a .............family. All people respect them.

a) respected b) respectable c) respectful

I think 'a' & 'b' are correct.

I need two sentences that show the difference between 'respected' and 'respectable'

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

Omar Ahmed
He comes from a .............family. All people respect them.
a) respected b) respectable c) respectful
I think 'a' & 'b' are correct.
Yes. Personally, I like 'respectable' better, but both are correct.
I need two sentences that show the difference between 'respected' and 'respectable'
Ooph! That's a tall order. I wonder if such sentences can be found.

This is the closest I can come to the kinds of sentences you are looking for, but even these are not really good enough.

Often, 'respectable family' suggests heritage. Here 'family' often means many generations of the same family. It also suggests a middle to upper class family.

On the other hand, 'respected family' may suggest the immediate family, i.e., two or possibly three generations, and it suggests having earned respect by a means other than having money.

That said, each can usually be replaced by the other in most sentences where one of them occurs.

He was descended from a pious and respectable family whose ancestors came from Britain in 1630.
We had arrived as complete strangers with foreign ways, but in a decade we had become a respected family in the community.

CJ

A perplexing sentence

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