gravity: weight
gravidity: pregnancy
“Gravity” has taken a long strange road from originally meaning something like importance, seriousness, and ending up being the term for a fundamental force in physics.
It does still mean seriousness: the gravity of a decision, a speech, a facial expression.
I agree, that’s why I went with voiced and unvoiced, which is exactly the difference between the “th” in “the” and “thin”, and I think it’s how the phonologists term them.
systematic: methodical; according to a system; treating an object as a system
systemic: pertaining to a system
ruff: a circular frill or ruffle; anything formed with plaits or flutings like a frill
rough: not smooth; uneven
Those are examples of paired words that I always, Always, ALWAYS have to think of in their pairs to remember which is which.
Prone / supine.
Proximal / distal
Medial / lateral
Dorsal / ventral
Abduct / adduct
For each one, I typically easily remember ONE definition, and have to cross-check it against the other to make sure I’m using it right.
Along those lines, the prefixes Hyper (above or over) and Hypo (under or below) … if you are giving a hyperdermic injection, you’re doing it wrong!
Chile (sometimes Chili in old documents): South American republic
chilli (also chili, chile) capsicum
use: to employ, to apply
utilize: to make use of; to put to use; to make useful
And before it became used almost entirely in a negative sense, “exploit” was a synonym for utilize.
I would actually consider those as almost perfect synonyms. Can you give us a sentence whose meaning changes when swapping those two words?
Here’s one I’ve only heard a couple of times, but the most recent was in an old episode of Frasier, which rather surprised me:
morose - sullen, depressed
instead of
moronic - extremely stupid
They are pretty close, but “utilize” seems to have a sense of making or rendering something useful, converting to use, making best use of or improving. The word itself is “rare before 1858” according to my old OED.
Simple “use” can also mean consuming, wearing, or expending, or becoming accustomed, which is not necessarily implied by “utilize” at all: “Thou… used to the yoke” ; “We are not long in using ourselves to changes in life.”
Even “he uses cocaine” is not 100% synonymous with “he utilizes cocaine” [for what? how?]
Here’s one where I think usage may have changed to the point where there isn’t a difference any more, except for me:
persuade - to reason or argue someone into a belief or course of action, not necessarily easily
convince - to persuade someone that a belief is true
machine: an apparatus/appliance/instrument; an instrument to transmit or modify force; a device or vehicle operated mechanically
mechanism: a system of mutually adapted parts working together mechanically
When you specify that a ‘mechanism’ is working mechanically it doesn’t mean anything different from ‘machine’. ‘Mechanism’ may be used to describe a non-mechanical system, but if it’s mechanical I think it’s a machine.
You are right. People write about, for instance, biological mechanisms or mental mechanisms, which are not machines. The system need not be literally mechanical; it may be analogous.
Perhaps we could say
mechanism: a system of mutually adapted parts working together
mechanicallyfunctionally to accomplish a result that could not be achieved by those same parts not acting in concert.
One could cut that off after “functionally”, but that more or less just moves the goal posts to defining what one means by “functional”. Hence my long-winded coda.
Interesting to compare “machine” and “engine”: the latter and words related to it have quite a fascinating etymology.
I’m still a bit clueless on whether there’s a substantive difference these days between “motor” and “engine”.