E31 Choosing Synonyms

The German compound word 'sitzfleisch ' has an interesting definition.

Def: 1. The ability to sit through or tolerate something boring.

2. The ability to endure or persist in a task.

I want to draw your attention to this paragraph discussion its usage, particularly to the words "politeness wants that the guest has to decide".

"A very common understanding in Germany is: you have guests and politeness wants that the guest has to decide when he wants to leave. Sometimes there are guests who stay and stay.  You want to go to bed but the guest sits and sits; we say 'He has sitzfleisch.'"

In English, although we can say "That car wants washing."  or "The meat needs more salt." and "This email requires an immediate answer."  There is a subtle difference in the connotations.  "Wants" comes from 'want' as in the situation of poverty or famine and means "has a lack of".  "Needs" comes from 'need' as in 'necessity'—without the salt the food is unpalatable or that the meat will rot without sufficient salt to preserve it when it is stored in the autumn for the winter.   "Requires" is another kind of necessity, and it implies the formal rules of politeness or protocol.

In the paragraph above I would have chosen "requires".

Choosing the right word among a set of synonyms requires a subtle knowledge of the connotations (related meanings) from checking the word origins and usages.  If one reads a lot of books and such, one can acquire a knowledge of "how the word is used" in many situations.  But that might take hours and hours of reading.  Not everyone is prepared to do that much reading nor enjoys it.  The use of a good dictionary can save you that much reading.

Even so, we may choose incorrectly due to inexperience or due to using what "sounds right" in the local parlance.  That is one of the reasons that students are required to write and write in school: to display one's experience or inexperience with words so that the teacher can point you to the most appropriate choice.  Kids who hate to read out loud or to hand in their writing for editing, are missing out on the opportunity to learn those subtleties of meaning.

Students need to learn to give themselves the break of learning; and teachers need to give them the break of distinguishing between a learning opportunity as opposed to a testing situation.