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Super-Confusing Words in English: Deny / Refuse
Super-Confusing Words in English: Deny / Refuse
Deny / Refuse
deny – say something is not true, or say that you did not do something
refuse – NOT do something, or say firmly that you will not do something
The employee was fired after he refused to do what the manager asked.
Note that after deny we always use the -ing form, and after refuse we always use the “to” form.
When in the passive voice – after the verb “to be” and before “of” – you can
use afraid or scared with no change in meaning.
However, when used in the active voice, you can use only scared or frightened:
You can also describe something that causes fear as scary or frightening:
Staff / Employees
Both of these words refer to people who work at a company. But staff is always singular and
uncountable – it describes the entire group of workers as one thing. Employees is countable and
plural – it describes the collection of individual workers.
The entire staff was happy about the extra day off.
All the employees were happy about the extra day off.
Interfere has a negative connotation; it is when someone/something affects a situation, and you
don’t want it to:
Bob and Joe were about to start fighting, but Pam intervened and calmed them down.
Problem / Trouble
Relation / Relationship
Relationship can describe a connection between two people (it can be romantic or not):
I’ve been dating my boyfriend for three years. We have a great relationship.
He has a terrible relationship with his father.
Both relationship and relation can describe connections between two things:
The word relations (plural) is used with general connections in a specific category: international
relations, diplomatic relations, race relations, etc.
Suppose / Supposed To
The word suppose means something like think, believe, imagine, or expect:
He’s not answering his cell phone. I suppose he’s already gone to bed; after all, it’s midnight.
The expression supposed to means something should be done, but it was not (or is not usually)
done:
I was supposed to go to work today, but I’m sick so I stayed home.
We’re supposed to park our cars in the company garage, but most people just park on the street.
Switch / Change
The word change means for something to become different. The word switch is more specific – it
means to stop using/doing one thing and start using/doing another.