Omission or Admission

Question

I am stuck with a problem I think you might be able to help me please. Can you tell me which one is the proper sentence please of the following?
1./ By his own omission he said he couldn't do the job.
or
2./ By his own admission he said he could not do the job.

And if you could, how would I use 'omission' in a sentence.

Thank you for your time and God bless,
Fred S.

Wumanfu · Accepted Answer

Hi,
1 Homework answer (2 parts)
2 I talk a little bit about this homework question
3 references from English language books (5 references)

1a Homework answer
This sentence sounds OK: “By his own admission he said he could not do the job”.
1b Homework answer
This next sentence includes the word, omission. the omission of his name from the telephone book meant that his friends could not find his new telephone number.

2 I talk a little bit about this homework question
These words might sound the same to a person who has just started to use English in conversation. In your homework exercise, the word admission means the same thing as confession. These other words are similar to admission too: acknowledgment; and declaration. Please understand that the word admission also has another two meanings too. Maybe read some more in section 3.
The word omission means the same thing as exclusion. These other words are similar to omission too: leaving out; exception; noninclusion; deletion; erasure; elimination; and expunction.
The trick to answering this sort of homework question is to read and listen to English. The question is testing your ability to recognise common English phrases. Therefore, recognising that this is a common phrase is far more important than understanding the exact meaning of the words.

3 references from English language books
I keep two books on my desk to help me with English. The first is a dictionary and the second is a Thesaurus. The Thesaurus helps me to work out which word to use because it lists lots of other words that mean the same thing. I’ve pasted the reference material I used to think about this question below. The information is technical and understanding it takes study.

3a The Oxford American Thesaurus of Current English
omission noun 1.
the omission of his name from the list leaving out, exclusion, exception, noninclusion, deletion, erasure, elimination, expunction. 2.
guilty of a sin of omission neglect, neglectfulness, negligence, dereliction, forgetfulness, oversight, disregard, nonfulfillment, default, failure. 3.
note several omissions from the list exclusion, oversight, gap, lacuna. opposites: addition; inclusion.

3b The Concise Oxford Dictionary
omit
•v. (omitted, omitting) leave out or exclude. ?fail to do.
- DERIVATIVES omissible adj.
omission n. omissive adj.
- ORIGIN ME: from L. omittere, from ob- 'down' + mittere 'let go'.
.

3c The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English
omission n.
the act or an instance of omitting.

3d The Oxford American Thesaurus of Current English
admission noun 1.
admission to the university | admission to the private party admittance, entry, right of entry, entrance, access, entrée; fml. ingress. 2.
admission is $3 entrance fee, entry charge, ticket, cover charge. 3.
an admission of guilt/failure acknowledgment, confession, revelation, disclosure, divulgence, expression, declaration, utterance, avowal.

3e The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English
admission /
dmísh
n/ n.
1.
an acknowledgment (admission of error).
2.
(a) the right of entering. (b) a charge for this.
3.
a person admitted to a hospital.
(Admission traditionally referred to the price paid for entry or the right to enter: Admission was $5. Admittance more often referred to physical entry:
We were denied admittance by a large man with a forbidding scowl. In the sense of ‘permission or right to enter,’ these words have become almost interchangeable,
although admittance is more formal and technical.)
In criminal law, a distinction has traditionally existed between these words: an admission is a concession that an allegation or factual assertion is true
without any acknowledgment of guilt with respect to the criminal charges, whereas a confession involves an acknowledgment of guilt as well as of the truth
of factual allegations.

ALT · Answer

Hi Fred,

Admission comes from the verb admit and omission from the verb omit which have different meanings. In your sentence the correct word is admission because he is admitting he cannot do his job.

An example of omission could be:-

"The omission of his address meant that his job application was refused."

Ie. he omitted to write his address on the form.

Hope this helps.......

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