Friday's English Language Lesson #1

[ajva]

The word "infer" should generally be used to mean "deduce" or "conclude by reasoning from evidence". It may sometimes be used to mean "imply". However, this latter usage is, as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, not universally accepted, and in fact if you use it like this in my presence you are likely to get a frying pan round the head.




Watch out for next week's thrilling installment of Friday's English Language Lesson.

Comments

[adjectivegail]

*brainfoom* I've never known/come across the use of "infer" to mean "imply". It's like saying... I don't know. That two things that are slightly different are actually the same when of course they're not.

It seems rather diplomatic of the OED to say "not universally accepted" because to me it just seems plain old wrong.

[sgloomi.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's only really *used* when someone gives you it as an adversorial gift. As in:

"Are you inferring that I'm stupid!?"
"No, I'm implying that you're stupid. You're inferring it. Well done."