Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ajuma]

How do you explain the difference between the words "drop" and "fall".
They seem to mean the same: "The plane dropped from the sky" or "The plane fell from the sky" mean the same thing. (Although I'd say that the second is the more common usage.) But we would never say "The man dropped from the 12th floor window." But we MIGHT say that he dropped from the 2nd floor window!

Another set: decline/decrease. IS there a difference? "The market share declined/decreased this quarter." (Here, I'd say both are correct) "We saw a sharp decline/decrease in attendance after the new management took over." (Here, I'd say the first is "more" correct.)

Any suggestions?

(And no jokes about the "Decrease and Drop of the Roman Empire" please! )

[hypnotist]

Hum. I'm not an English teacher, so take this with a pinch of salt. But.

I'd use 'drop' either in the sense of 'let fall' (as in the french laisser tomber) or in the sense of moving from one place to a specifically lower place (as in "the water level dropped").

Hence I would interpret "the plane fell from the sky" (it moved downwards) as slightly different to "the plane dropped from the sky" (it moved from the sky to the ground), even though the sense of what happened is the same for both (the plane lost altitude quickly).

As for decline and decrease, I think both can be used when talking about things lessening (e.g. market shares), but decline can also be used for things worsening or lowering (e.g. "I felt the area was declining", "the land declines sharply" - the latter is somewhat formal though).

Hope that's food for thought - and 'real' English teachers, please feel free to rip it apart

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Unless you're talking about falling a tree, 'to fall' is normally an intransitive verb (cannot take a direct object), whereas 'to drop' is. I.E. you can drop something, but you cannot fall something (lumberjacks and perhaps certain others excepted).

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Oh, and from what I can gather to decrease (think de + crease) means to shrink, whereas to decline (de + cline) means to lower.

[waggo]

[thebum]

[hypnotist]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[Zyzyfer]

Is there really a difference? I checked on Dictionary.com for fun and, aside from fall being defined with the word drop, there's not really much difference between the two sets. I'm no grammar guru, but I think it just boils down to popular usage.

[waggo]

I think fall cant have an agent but drop can.

[Ya-ta Boy]

The first time a student asked me the difference, I nearly drove myself nuts trying to answer and ended up finding that I don't know the difference. I can't find the pattern.

Some cases have to do with 'accident', but some don't:

1. The vase fell off the table and broke. (No one would ever use 'drop' here.)

2. I dropped my pencil. (Clearly an accident.)

3. Joe shouted, "Drop it!" when he saw the armed burglar. (No accident.)

4. What do leaves do in the fall? I think they can either fall or drop.

5. What does the temperature do during a cold snap?


Where is Michael Swann when you need him?

[hypnotist]

[superhal]

another possible explanation is collocation. words just tend to go with other words rather than a similar word that has almost the same meaning:

I was born
at 9:00
on Thursday
in a hospital
in California
on 44th street
in May.

so, in the case of leaves, "fall" tends to be used over "drop," not including the transitive/intransitive cases listed above. another example would be "blind as a bat" instead of "unseeing as a bat."

in cases where a grammatical rule is not being broken, i usually give this rule (which i call a "usage" rule) and explain it as saying native speakers will generally not do it, but it is grammatically correct.

[matthewwoodford]

I agree with the last poster. 'fall' and 'drop' are almost the same but used in different collocations generally. 'dropped' so often goes with 'dropped like a stone' that it seems funny to talk of leaves, feathers, or pieces of paper 'dropping' - or 'plummeting'.

[ajuma]

matthewwoodford said: