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Peter Wolf Posted 17 years ago
Vocabulary

"distinction" and "difference"

Shall I say,

They have no distinction(or distinctions?)

They have no difference(or differences?)

and

Do they have the same meaning?
  

Top answer

I was just looking through the great web for an answer to this very question and, not finding any, I decided to give it some further thought; i decided to consider carefully the words "different" and "distinct" and the difference or distintion between them. The first word suggests that two or more things are similar but have some "slight alterations" while the latter word suggests that there is a significant difference and that the two or more items need to maintain their individuality -they must remain DISTINCT. The two words are like cousins and may be used interchangeably but "distinction" definitely has a stronger meaning.

— Anonymous

  • I was just looking through the great web for an answer to this very question and, not finding any, I decided to give it some further thought; i decided to consider carefully the words "different" and "distinct" and the difference or distintion between them.
  • The first word suggests that two or more things are similar but have some "slight alterations" while the latter word suggests that there is a significant difference and that the two or more items need to maintain their individuality -they must remain DISTINCT.
  • The two words are like cousins and may be used interchangeably but "distinction" definitely has a stronger meaning.
  • Daniel Hama
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3 Answers
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I was just looking through the great web for an answer to this very question and, not finding any, I decided to give it some further thought; i decided to consider carefully the words "different" and "distinct" and the difference or distintion between them. The first word suggests that two or more things are similar but have some "slight alterations" while the latter word suggests that there is a
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I can't say whether you should use "distinction" or "difference" without knowing a bit more about the context of the sentence you're trying to write. Their useage is interchangeable but they do have slightly different meanings (slightly distinct meanings?).

The structure you've used, however, doesn't sound right to me. You'd be better off with:

There is no distinction between the
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Distinction and difference have different meanings; there is even a saying, [url=http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/distinction_without_a_difference]"...a distinction without a difference,"[/url] which shows their difference. A distinction is a separation between things, whether artificial or na
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