says you/what's the difference

tuesday nights on kcrw, you can hear a quirky little game called
says you. it's sort of like balderdash; a panel of people make up definitions to obscure words from the dictionary. it doesn't sound like an amusing thing to listen to on the radio, but somehow, it really is.

anyway, they do little variations on games, and tonight, one of them was "what's the difference?" i thought some of the questions were worth sharing.

for instance, do you know the difference between ability and capability?

what about the difference between pronunciation and enunciation?

and, perhaps less essentially, but by no means less interesting, the difference between a tortoise and a turtle, or a rabbit and a jackrabbit?


you should have tuned in, my friends.

but. no worries. i'm not the type to make you go look up the answers yourself. actually, i am, except that i want to have them archived for my own sake the next time i need to look this up. so here they are...



ABILITY is something innate, while CAPABILITY is a skill that's been demonstrated or improved.
for instance, many have the ABILITY to hit a baseball; few have the capability to hit a long ball.

are we learning??

next up, according to the dictionary they used, PRONUNCIATION is the manner in which a word is spoken, while ENUNCIATION is the expression of a proposition or theory in clear or definite terms.
therefore, you PRONOUNCE the word declaration but you ENUNCIATE the declaration of independence.

woweewow!!!

last up, our animals.
tortoises are terrestrial; turtles are sea creatures.
and jackrabbits are hares, while rabbits are not. a jackrabbit's ears and legs are longer than a rabbit's, and their nesting habits are different [ a hare lives in simple nests above ground, while a rabbit burrows ]


see what you can learn when you listen to npr!! tell me you're not a more interesting person now. go ahead, tell me!