In my country's high school graduation exam every year, there is at least one sentence to test candidates on word pairs such as: "intelligible vs intelligent"; "comparable vs comparative". Are they the so-called false synonyms as well?
Thank you very much! That is a good question. I guess they could be classed as false synonyms. If we break the words down and go back to their roots then 'intelligible' looks like it could mean 'able to discern or understand' and 'intelligent' basically means 'person of discernment or understanding', so they do look very similar. However, we know that 'intelligible' actually means 'able to BE understood' so it is a suble difference that could easily trip up a poor, unsuspecting English learner! Thanks for your question, it really made me think!
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In my country's high school graduation exam every year, there is at least one sentence to test candidates on word pairs such as: "intelligible vs intelligent"; "comparable vs comparative". Are they the so-called false synonyms as well?
Thank you very much! That is a good question. I guess they could be classed as false synonyms. If we break the words down and go back to their roots then 'intelligible' looks like it could mean 'able to discern or understand' and 'intelligent' basically means 'person of discernment or understanding', so they do look very similar. However, we know that 'intelligible' actually means 'able to BE understood' so it is a suble difference that could easily trip up a poor, unsuspecting English learner! Thanks for your question, it really made me think!