Inserting the right word in context

Question

I am an English teacher and me and my colleagues made the following question.

The answer is ?universal. However, I am still not convinced. I guess ?universal is approiate, too while it is not that natural. In the original sentence it was unique (Unless the circumstances are unique,~)

What do you think?

Q1. Which word is inapproiate in context?

Although instances occur in which partners start their relationship by telling everything about themselves to each other, such instances are ?rare. In most cases, the amount of ?confession increases over time. We begin relationships by revealing relatively little about ourselves: if our first bits of selfdisclosure are not well received, we’re ?reluctant to reveal more. This is important to remember. It would usually be a mistake to ?presume that the way to build a strong relationship would be to reveal the most private details about yourself when first making contact with another person. Unless the circumstances are ?universal, such baring of your soul would be likely to scare potential partners away rather than bring them closer.

Clive · Accepted Answer

Yes, universal is the inappropriate word.

unique is OK.

Clive

CalifJim · Answer

park hat 526I am an English teacher and me and my colleagues made the following question.

If you are an English teacher, you should be able to find the errors in the sentence above. Want to try?

CJ

Nel0506 · Answer

park hat 526

I am an English teacher and me and my colleagues made the following question.

The answer is ?universal. However, I am still not convinced. I guess ?universal is approiate, too while it is not that natural. In the original sentence it was unique (Unless the circumstances are unique,~)

What do you think?

1. I am also not convinced that universal is all that inappropriate - or inappropriate enough to actually want to test it. What's the point? Inappropriate or relevant would work well, imho..

2. I would make the first reference to instances = situations and then keep the second occurrence of instances as it is. Like circumstances at the bottom, it's a useful paraphrase to include for testing the context and the topic.

3. To me, amount should be changed to level of confession.

4. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lifetime-connections/201805/self-disclosure-trust-essential-in-healthy-relationships

Since you asked...

Q1. Which word is inapproiate in context?

Although instances (situations?) occur in which partners start their relationship by telling everything about themselves to each other, such instances are ?rare. In most cases, the amount (level?)of ?confession increases over time. We begin relationships by revealing relatively little about ourselves: if our first bits of selfdisclosure are not well received, we’re ?reluctant to reveal more. This is important to remember. It would usually be a mistake to ?presume that the way to build a strong relationship would be to reveal the most private details about yourself when first making contact with another person. Unless the circumstances are ?universal, such baring of your soul would be likely to scare potential partners away rather than bring them closer.

Park hat 526 · Answer

To me, by changing "unique" to ""universal", it looks like the sentence got a new meaning. (Not being just the opposite)

"Unless the circumstances are ?universal," sounds like "Unless you follow the general emotions,".

I wonder how it reads to others. (Of course, the sentence might not be natural, we were thinking of chaning it to "general", too. But I want to know whether "?universal/general" also makes sense in the whole context.

Inserting the right word in context

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions