consummate, foods, food, paraphernalia

This is an interesting discussion of how to use words precisely. The last word is new to me; have seen the first word but never used myself. 

I agree with -bmdn-: foods and food need to be differentiated to provide precision. It is a very subtle matter indeed. I am not able to tell which is which.

Paraphernalia does have a feminine connotation in terms of belongings, after reading a few quotations. What Sportwoman qoutes belongs to a legal use or drug use that has another connotation of its own. I think -bmdn- is on the point here too. Some dictionaries may not provide all shapes of a word, particularly those online ones, not professionally edited. 

Consummate is indeed an interesting word, too interesting I dare say! Hammershark is right on this: this means to conclude in his writing. It is not to mean consume. 

I learn quite a bit from reading this thread. Precision is indeed hard to achieve. Thanks guys! 

 

所有跟帖： 

• 看來paraphernalia也許可更泛用一些，隻是看了眾多例句，少有真把它和belongings等同， -淘金客- ♂ (33 bytes) () 02/07/2013 postreply 19:25:59

• Hmmm, may be I was reading too fast on "consummate" -bmdn- ♀ (131 bytes) () 02/08/2013 postreply 07:44:19