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Magic79 Posted 16 years ago
Vocabulary

Bare hands vs. naked hands

Hi!

In a large corpus, I got these results:

bare hands= 450 hits

http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/x.asp?w=943&h=530

naked hands = 7 hits



So, my question is is naked hands OK in English?

What's the difference between the two collocates?
  

Top answer

" It would be understood, but it sounds very strange. No logical reason -- it's just not the way we say it.

— Khoff

  • " It would be understood, but it sounds very strange.
  • No logical reason -- it's just not the way we say it.
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5 Answers
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The difference is that (almost) no one ever says "naked hands." It would be understood, but it sounds very strange. No logical reason -- it's just not the way we say it.
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naked is used for parts that are supposed to be covered and bare for thoes that can be either covered or exposed.

for feet and hands bare is mostly used.

bare feet/bare hands/ bare arms and so forth
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That's a good general rule, but it doesn't explain "germs cannot be seen with the naked eye."
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Very interesting.

Has anyone tried to check the corpus for the 7 examples of "naked hands"????
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COCA:2008:FIC
Bk:StrangersTouch it. // In a few hours, she could hold the brooch in her naked hands and know everything-use every drop of her intuitive sixth sense to absorb what her...
2 COCA:2008:FIC
Bk:StrangersTouch his lies. I thought I loved Brice, but he was using me-rather my naked hands-to scam money, then calling me a freak' to his friends....
3 COCA:
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