Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[secjill]

Hello teachers,

Could you help me out with these two questions? I know it must be easy for you but a little bit confusing for me.
thank you!


1.The best thing you can do is make it obvious why you can do it better than ------else.
A. anybody B. everybody C. somebody

2.You should consider getting your-------trimmed before your interview
A. nails B. face C. hair D. appearance

[Eric Thompson]

Dear secjill, In your #1 sentence, the feeling of the sentence is that he is the 'best', better than all other people. 'better than anybody else' feels best for me. 'everybody' is certainly a logical good choice, but doesn't sound as natural as 'anybody'. 'somebody' is not correct in this case, as it is not definite. To make it more complicated, 'anyone' sounds as good as, and is easier to say than, 'anybody'. In #2, we trim our nails and cut our hair, normally speaking. We don't trim our faces or our appearance. Trim means to shorten the length of something, a little bit, like fingernails. When we go to the barber for a haircut, we may tell him to just give us a 'trim', i.e., not much hair cut off. Ok? --Eric

[secjill]

Thank you so much, Eric, for your clear explanation.