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Fri 24 Jul, 2009 11:47 pm
When I look up at Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, I found that "cause","bring something about", "breed" and "induce" have a similar meaning of "to make something happen", so can I use the other three instead of "breads" in the sentence "Favouritism breeds resentment."?If not, could you please tell me the slightly differences between the four verbs.
Thank you.
@jinmin1988,
The use of "breed" is more metaphorical because its more usual use is in biology (the breeding of animals). Therefore, when used with the abstract nown "favouritism" it tends to have more impact than "cause" etc since it implies both a "period of breeding" and a "natural process". Such economy of meaning improves the style of the aphorism.
@fresco,
Cronyism wants to but only nepotism breeds.
In this phrase,
breeds = grows, spawns
Cause = direct result of
induce = leads to
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