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Hi all

I want to ask some questions about words.

1) What is the difference between speculate and guess?

2) What is the difference between detach and separate or remove from ?

3) Is this sentence right ?
while i was walking at the street i discovered that someone is surveillanced me .

4) What is the difference between saying
'' it is a serverely pain ''
'' it is a serios pain ''

5) What ambiguous mean ?

6) What is the difference between reinforce and exert ?

7) What is the difference between require and need ?

sorry for all this questions but i realy confused about them .

Nona the brit · Accepted Answer

Hmmm, some of these are quite tricky. Someone else may be able to give you a more technical answer but from a useage point of view I think:

1) There is a nuance in meaning here I cannot quite express but, generally speaking, speculate is more suitable for formal situations and guess is more suitable for informal use. Examples:

He decided to speculate on the stock exchange. The detective said ‘I refuse to speculate on the cause of death.’

She tried to guess how many pennies would fit in the jar. I guessed at the answers and still scored 65%.

2) In the senses of verbs, ending a connection, my personal feelings are that:

Detach implies that something was initially physically attached (unless we are talking of emotional detachment). It also implies an uneven split. Separate can be used when there wasn’t a permanent physical detachment and can be an even split. Remove from means to take one thing away completely. But I suspect that it is a case of learning which to use in each situation, rather than having a nice sensible rule to follow as they can be interchangeable in some situations.

Examples
Detach the voucher from the letter to claim your free beer. Your car might fit under the bridge if you detach the ariel. She separated the boys who were fighting. Separate the egg yolk from the white.
Remove from the heat when it boils. ‘If you continue to use abusive language, you will be removed from this shopping centre.’

3) While I was walking down the street I discovered/realised that I was under surveillance.
While I was walking down the street I discovered/realised that someone was watching me.

The verb tenses do not match in your original sentence and surveillance is not a verb. I would imagine that it is related to the verb ‘survey’ but that wouldn’t have the same meaning here.

4) It is a severe pain
It is a serious pain.

Severe and serious can be synonyms but in this case you would say severe not serious. You might have a serious injury or a severe injury. You could have a serious illness (but not a severe one). So again, I suspect that it is just a case of learning which to use in which instance.

5) Ambiguous; vague, unclear, could be understood in different ways.

6) reinforce and exert – I guess you are thinking of these together as they can both be related to strength, but their meanings are quite different. Reinforce: to strengthen. Exert: to use strength.

Example: He exerted himself carrying in the concrete to reinforce the wall.

7) require or need. I think another case of learning which is appropriate.

Paradisse · Answer

Thank you very much nona .

I think the point is that there are some words which we can use in formal situations and others in the normal talking .

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