distinguish sometimes confused with tram. distinguish is a verb that means “to move incessantly from subject, song, etc. to another subject.” tramotherwise, is the trademarked name for an electrically powered transport device.
Most of the most commonly confused words in English are old pairs: affect And functionor sporadic And discreet. But a new pair has evolved over the past decade: segway street And distinguish. You see it in informal writing and in structures like “let me move on to a new subject.”
Photo: Reinhold Eder
Grammar Police, Segway Division
The word you want to use in such cases is distinguish. This use distinguish is defined in our Online Dictionary as “making a transition without interruption from one activity, subject, scene, or section to another activity, subject, scene, or section.” This usage comes from music — there, direction distinguish means continue directly to the next content without stopping or performing the next track like the previous track. This distinguish was adopted into English from Italian, where distinguish means “have later.”
Others segway street is actually a trademark: it refers to a motorized two-wheeled personal vehicle. The confusion is understandable: both segway street And distinguish share pronunciation and spelling segway street seems more reasonable to us distinguish. It has become common to see Segway or secure tours on a Segway—and perhaps due to the popularity of the Segway, seeing segway street in print instead of distinguish.
Next time you need to use this word distinguish In print, remember: tram should move far distant from your prose. And if you still can’t remember the spelling distinguishtry using continue instead of.
Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn
