search..seek..confuse..perplex

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Hi,

What is the difference between ?,

- search and seek

- confuse and perplex.

I think people use them without caring about the real difference sometimes. Ofcourse,

I'm one of them Smile

.

I'm not sure if they are synonyms, or there is a nuance.

Thanks

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Quote:

search and seek

well, they have different parts of speech, but they are used to express the same thing

I seek assistance

means the same thing as

I am searching for assistance

The other big difference is that seek is used less commonly nowdays, so it sounds more archaic to use it

[quote[- confuse and perplex. [/quote]

they really mean the exact same thing. the only difference would be in the imagination of the reader, because the different sounds of the words can conjure up different images to different people

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Confuse and perplex are not quite the same.

If you are confused you are baffled, but you aren't necessarily troubled by this; indeed you may not even realise the situation. If you are perplexed, you know there is something you don't understand and it worries you. I would definitely expect a perplexed person to have a worried frown on his/her face.

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I don't believe that is correct

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stuh505 wrote:

I don't believe that is correct

I would certainly agree that they are very close, but if I'm looking for nuances I would get them from the OED listings below:

Quote:

perplexed
Of things, conditions, language, etc.: Full of doubt or difficulty from its intricate or entangled condition; intricate, involved, complicated

confused
Characterized by disorderly combination or intermixture; disordered, disorderly

There seems to be some consistency that suggests that perplexed might be better used where doubt is caused by something that is inherently intricate but not necessarily disorderly--such as differential calculus.

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Quote:

There seems to be some consistency that suggests that perplexed might be better used where doubt is caused by something that is inherently intricate but not necessarily disorderly--such as differential calculus.

Given the variation of ad hoc methods available for solving differential calculus by hand, one might argue that it is not such a well-ordered problem...but your point is clear.

However, even a well ordered problem can cause an equally high degree of disorder to one's thoughts, hence the statement "I am confused," not "this problem is confused." We say "this problem is confusing," but that only means that the problem leads to confusion of the reader's thoughts, which does not imply that the problem itself is disordered (although that may well be the case).

Since both of these conditions are used to describe a person's state of mind, and since both ordered and disordered problems may lead to disordered states of mind, I do not see a difference.

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stuh505 wrote:

However, even a well ordered problem can cause an equally high degree of disorder to one's thoughts, hence the statement "I am confused," not "this problem is confused." We say "this problem is confusing," but that only means that the problem leads to confusion of the reader's thoughts, which does not imply that the problem itself is disordered (although that may well be the case).

Before doing this research, I would have said the same and I will likely continue to avoid saying "this problem is confused." However, the OED and others seem to indicate that these two words can apply to things; specifically those which seem to cause confusion or perplexity. This is why I am suggesting that their nuances applied to beings should be derived from their meaning applied to things.

From American Heritage we have:

Quote:

perplexed
2. Full of complications or difficulty; involved.

confused
2.
a) Lacking logical order or sense: a confused set of instructions.
b) Chaotic; jumbled: a confused mass of papers on the floor.

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Let's see what Webster's Third New International Unabridged Dictionary's take on the subject is (an excellent dictionary for the record):

Quote:

Confused: 1: Perplexed, disconcerted 2: mingled so as to be indistinguishable

Quote:

Perplexed: 1 a archaid: emotionally disturbed by the intricacy or difficulty of the situation : anxious, troubled, distraught. b: filled with doubt or uncertainty: puzzled, bewildered 2: full of difficulty: complicated 3: entangled

Well, this dictionary doesn't make a distinction.

It is interesting to note that these dictionaries all seem to allow the word to apply to the problems as well as the state of mind.

On that regard my inclination is to say that the dictionaries are wrong, because honestly...nobody uses these words that way, and after all the dictionaries are only written by people, and their research or opinions do not necessarily reflect the actual usages of the words.

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Thanks everybody. So, I understand that they are close in meaning, with no real difference. Plus, perplex sounds more archaic.

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search..seek..confuse..perplex

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