Sensual / Sensuous
Sensual: related to the body; sensuous: related to the five senses.
e.g. It is difficult to be spiritual when one focuses too
much on sensual
pleasures.
e.g. The painter is able to provide some sensuous images in his painting.
Irritable / Irritant
Irritable means easily made angry; irritant means causing anger or discomfort.
e.g. He has a short temper and is easily irritable.
e.g. Nobody likes him because of his irritant
behavior.
Right /
Rightly
Right:
immediately; rightly: justly, correctly.
e.g.
Do it right now.
e.g.
Do it right away.
e.g.
I rightly canceled
the trip.
e.g.
We refused the offer, and rightly so.
Sensual / Sensuous
Sensual: related to the body; sensuous: related to the five senses.
e.g. It is difficult to be spiritual when one focuses too
much on sensual
pleasures.
e.g. The painter is able to provide some sensuous images in his painting.
Defer / Infer
Defer: give way or yield to; infer: conclude.
e.g. He is a good kid: he always defers to his parents' wishes.
e.g. We can infer from your statement that you don't
like this policy.
Potent / Potential
Potent:
strong, powerful; potential: power that could be, but is not yet.
e.g. He
is a potent politician.
e.g. He
has great potential in American politics.
Compare
to / Compare
with
Compare
to: state a resemblance to; compare with: put side by side to find out the
similarities and differences.
e.g. The poet compares living in this modern world to riding on a bullet train.
e.g. If you compare Plan A with Plan B, you will know that Plan B
is much better than Plan A.
All / All
of
All is used for amount,
quantity, distance, and length of time.
e.g. all the money, all the way, all day, all night,
All
of is
used when a simple pronoun follows.
e.g. all
of it, all
of you, all
of us.
All and all of may be used when it refers to
number.
e.g. All or all of the employees are satisfied with the new policy.
e.g. All or all of the children in the family have gone
to college.
Mediate / Meditate
Mediate means
to act as a peacemaker; meditate means
to think deeply.
e.g.
The Secretary of State is trying to mediate between
the two warring nations.
e.g.
He meditated revenge
after he was insulted by his coworkers.
Reverend / Reverent
Reverend: worthy of respect; reverent: showing respect.
e.g. Have you met the Rev. Mr. Johnson?
e.g. He gave a reverent speech on drug addiction.
In
regard to / As regards
Both
mean with reference to.
e.g. As
regards your performance, I think you did a good job (no “to”).
e.g.
She is very generous in regard to charity donation.
Stephen
Lau
Copyright©
by Stephen Lau
