Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[missdaredevil]

1.What are the differences between *trip over* and *fall over* and just *fall*?

2.indiscriminate
unselective: making no careful distinctions or choices
does

indiscriminate =random?


3.
Is the sentence below correct?
What are "breakfast, lunch, and dinner" in Spanish?


thanks

[CP]

1. You trip over something that catches your foot, but you might fall over a chair or something that catches more than your foot. When you fall, you start out upright and end up lying down, and you could get there by tripping over something or falling over something.

2. No, random means by random process, and actually should be reserved for that more technical meaning. Most people who say "random" really mean "haphazard."

But indiscriminate means "not using the powers of discrimination" or "not able to use discrimination," that is, not using the ability to tell similar things from one another and choosing based upon the small but important differences.

Certainly one could be discriminate but act indiscriminately -- choose something at random or haphazardly, not using the power of discrimination. But it wouldn't mean "random," as that could happen even if some other strategy (besides haphazard or random choice) is used.

3. The person is asking how to say those three things in Spanish, so it's all right as written. But if you really want to be particular, put each of the three words (and not "and") inside quotation marks or in italic type.
_________________
You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb

[missdaredevil]

[CP]

You can trip and fall, or you can trip and stumble but not fall.
_________________
You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb