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I have a nice, short entry for you today about the difference between the words “cologne” and “perfume”. In English, “cologne” can be used by both men and women, but “perfume” is only used by women. For example:

I just bought a new cologne for my husband. I hope he likes it.

My grandmother prefers wearing cologne to perfume.

My wife loves the new perfume I gave her. She wears it all the time.

The ladies’ department at ABC Department Store were giving away free samples of this perfume. Do you like it?

A cologne for women has a softer scent than perfume, so many older women like to wear that.

It’s very important that you don’t use the word “perfume” when talking about a man because it will sound very funny and strange.

Many of my students have asked me to explain the difference between “don’t mind” and “don’t care”, so I will do that today. We can often use “don’t mind” and “don’t care” in the same situations, but “don’t mind” sounds much softer than “don’t care”. For example:

I don’t mind which restaurant we go to. It’s up to you.

I don’t care which restaurant we go to. It’s up to you.

I don’t mind if Jeff comes to the party.

I don’t care if Jeff comes to the party.

I don’t mind if you smoke. Please go ahead.

I don’t care if you smoke. Please go ahead.

Peter made a joke about my weight, but I don’t mind.

Peter made a joke about my weight, but I don’t care.

In these situations, “don’t mind” sounds very polite and gentle. It’s like the person is saying “It’s ok with me.”; however, “don’t care” sounds stronger and it’s like the person is saying, “It doesn’t matter to me”.

In addition, we can use “don’t care” in ways that we cannot use “don’t mind”. In these cases, it means there is a lack of interest in something or someone. For example:

I don’t care about Hollywood celebrities. I’m not interested in their lives at all.

My girlfriend doesn’t care about me anymore. Last night, she broke up with me.

That restaurant obviously doesn’t care about the quality of their food. Everything we ordered tasted terrible.

As you can see from my examples, we always use the preposition “about” after “care” in these situations.

Today is my 400th blog entry for English Help Online! I have now been writing the English Help Online blog for over a year and three months. I would like to thank my readers for all your questions and kind comments. I hope I can continue to help you with your English studies! If you know someone who wants or needs to study English, please tell them about my blog.

The other day I received a message from someone that said, “I’m expecting your reply”. This sentence could be correct in some situations, but it’s not what the person wanted to say. He should have written, “I’m looking forward to your reply.” So today, I will write about the difference between “expect” and “look forward to”.

We use “expect” when we want to say that we have information that makes us believe a certain thing will happen. We use “look forward to” when we want to say that we think a certain thing will happen and that we are very pleased about it. Therefore, “look forward to” sounds very happy and positive, but “expect” doesn’t sound emotional at all. Let me give you some examples:

I’m expecting a phone call from Mr. Kane from ABC Company. Please let me know as soon as he calls.

I expect June will bring a chocolate cake to the party because that’s what she always brings.

I expect the price of gas will go up soon because oil reserves have gone down.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the new Johnny Depp movie! It’s supposed to be really good!

I’m looking forward to meeting you in person. I’ll see you on Friday when I come to New York.

I’m really looking forward to my vacation! I’m going to Spain this year!

It’s important to note that in my example sentences above, I used the present progressive tense: “I’m looking forward to”, but it’s also possible to use the simple present tense: “I look forward to”. The difference is that when we use the simple present tense, it sounds much more formal. For example:

I look forward to hearing from you soon. Thank you for your attention.

I look forward to meeting you and your business colleagues.

We look forward to doing business with you.

Therefore, we use “looking forward to” in casual conversations and writing, and we use “look forward to” in formal business conversations and writing.

Also, please note that we always use the -ing form of a verb or a noun after “to” in these sentences.

Many of my students are confused about the meaning of being “fired” and being “laid off”, so I would like to explain the difference today. In both cases, a person loses their job, but when we say they were “fired”, it means they probably made a big mistake and their boss was angry. When we say they were “laid off”, it means that the company didn’t have enough money to pay their salary. For example:

My co-worker was fired yesterday because she was always arriving late for work.

My boss was really angry at me for forgetting to bring the documents to the meeting. I think I’m going to be fired!

Several people at our company were laid off last year because of the recession.

I was laid off when my company merged with ABC Company. They said they didn’t need so many workers after that.

So, being “fired” is very negative because it’s usually the person’s own fault, but being “laid off” is not as negative because it’s not the person’s fault.

Please note that all of the examples above are in the passive voice. Here are some examples of active voice:

The boss fired my co-worker yesterday because she was always arriving late for work.

I think my boss is going to fire me!

My company laid off several people last year because of the recession.

My company laid me off after they merged with ABC Company.

The entry for today is about two words that many of my students get confused about: “surprised” and “shocked”. We use “surprised” when we want to talk about a situation that we find unexpected. It is generally a positive or neutral situation. On the other hand, we use “shocked” when we want to talk about a situation that we find extremely unexpected. These situations are usually negative but sometimes they can be neutral. The important thing to remember is that “shocked” is much stronger than “surprised”. For example:

I thought Jenny was about 30, but she’s really 41. I was quite surprised.

I thought Jenny was about 30, but she’s really 56! I was shocked!

I was surprised when I found out that Bill got a promotion after working at the company for only two years.

I was shocked when I found out that Bill got a promotion after working at the company for only five months!

These are examples of neutral situations. We use “surprised” in the first sentence because we feel it was a little unexpected, but we use “shocked” in the second sentence because it was very unexpected. Here are some more example sentences:

I was really surprised when my husband remembered my birthday. He usually forgets it.

I was pleasantly surprised when Gerry came to my party. He is usually too busy to come to my parties.

I was totally shocked when I found out that my boss died from a heart attack! He was only 52 years old!

Yesterday, my company announced that at least 100 employees would have to be laid off. Everyone was so shocked because we thought the company was doing well.

Here, the first two sentences use “surprised” in positive ways, and the last two examples use “shocked” because the situations are very serious and negative.

Please remember that we use the -ed forms, “surprised” and “shocked” when we are talking about people’s feelings about a situation. We use the -ing forms, “surprising” and “shocking” when we want to talk about a situation itself. For example:

It was so surprising when Bill got a promotion after only working at the company for two years.

There was a huge tsunami in Japan recently. It was shocking to see the terrible destruction it caused!

Please note that in these cases, we use the word “it” with the -ing forms.

A little while ago one of my readers asked me about the difference between “umpire” and “referee”, so that is what I’ll write about today.

Both words are used to talk about the person who decides if a particular play in a sport is good or bad. However, the word “umpire” is only used in cricket or baseball while “referee” is used in other sports such as football, soccer, hockey, etc. Here are some examples:

The umpire ruled that it was a foul ball.

The umpire at the baseball game said that Ron Jones was out, but I totally disagree. I saw the play, and I think he was safe.

According to the referee at the game, the goal didn’t count. A lot of fans were really angry at him.

The referee gave that hockey player a penalty for high sticking.

As you probably know, different countries have different words for certain sports. In Canada and the United States, we say “soccer” and “hockey”, but in other parts of the world like in Europe and Australia, they say “football” and “ice hockey”. In those parts of the world, when they say “hockey”, North Americans say “field hockey”. Because I’m from Canada, the words I used in my blog are North American based.

Last week, one of my readers wanted to know the difference between “above” and “over”, so that’s what I’ll write about today.

Generally, they have the same meaning, and that is for something to be placed in a higher position to something else. However, the word “above” can either have a word following it or not. In the case of “over”, there must be a word which follows it. For example:

The clouds above are very dark.

The clouds above us are very dark.

The clouds over us are very dark.

The bedroom is on the second floor just above.

The bedroom is on the second floor just above where we are standing.

The bedroom is on the second floor just over where we are standing.

If we say, “above” without any words following it, it sounds very formal. Also, in my opinion, using “above” + something is a little more formal than “over” + something.

We can also use these words to talk about a thing which is higher in number when comparing it to what is considered normal. For example:

You have a fever. Your temperature is 2 degrees above the normal temperature.

You have a fever. Your temperature is 2 degrees over the normal temperature.

This furniture store is very expensive. Their prices are about 20% above all the other furniture stores in this city.

This furniture store is very expensive. Their prices are about 20% over all the other furniture stores in this city.

Once again, in my opinion, I think using “above” is slightly more formal than “over”.

We can also use “over” in ways that we cannot use “above”. The word “over” can also by used when talking about movement that goes above and across something. For example:

The horses jumped over the fence and ran away.

I saw a car run over a dog this morning. It was horrible!

The word “over” can also be used to talk about something covering the entire surface of something else. In these cases, we often put the word “all” in front of it. For example:

When you’re cooking the chicken, make sure that the oil goes all over the chicken.

There is dust all over this table! I want you to clean it right now!

We walked all over the zoo yesterday. It’s a big place, so we were very tired.

I went all over the city trying to find the paint you wanted, but I couldn’t find it.

We can also use “over” to talk about unknown numbers or amounts. For example:

I have over 200 DVDs in my apartment. I really love movies!

I’m not sure how much this chair weighs, but I’m sure it’s over 20 kg.

It will take over three hours to get to Toronto by car from here.

There are several other ways in which we can use these words, especially “over”. If you would like more information about the detailed ways to use them, I recommend The Free Dictionary. The link for that site is on my blog.

The other day, one of my students asked me the difference between “electric” and “electronic”. I thought it was a very good question, so I’d like to share that with my readers today.

We use the adjective “electric” to talk about things which can be operated with electricity. Such things include lamps, toasters, radios, etc. However, we use the adjective “electronic” to talk about more complicated machines which have some kind of computer device operating inside them. Such machines include cell phones, video games, computers, iPods, etc. For example:

Our electric bill was very high last month, so please don’t use so much electricity this month.

This radio is electric, but it can also be run with batteries.

I went to an electronics store yesterday to buy a new computer.

My mother doesn’t feel comfortable using electronic devices. She doesn’t even have a cell phone.

Please note that the word “electricity” is the noun form of “electric”.

Also, the word “electronics”, with an S, is used to talk about machines in general which are electronic. Therefore, we can either say “electronic devices” or “electronics”. In the third example, I wrote “electronics store” with an S because it’s a store which sells electronics. If I wrote “electronic store”, it would mean the store itself is electronic, which is totally wrong.

Often I hear my students mixing up the words “customer” and “client”, so that’s what I’ll write about today. I’ll also go over when to use the word “guest”.

We use “customer” to talk about people who buy things from a store. We use “client” to talk about people who hire a company to provide a service to them. Finally, we use “guest” to talk about people who pay money to stay at a hotel. For example:

The store where I work had many customers today because it’s almost Christmas.

This must be a good store because it has so many customers.

I work for a lawyer and he has many clients. Yesterday, he talked with eight clients.

I’m going to go see my client today to talk about his financial needs.

Thank you for being a guest at our hotel. We hope to see you again soon.

One of our guests was complaining that he didn’t receive clean towels in his room this morning.

If it’s a restaurant, we use the word “customer”, and if it’s a school, we use the word “student”.

Today’s blog entry is about the difference between “some” and “any”. This is confusing for a lot of students especially people at a lower level. The basic difference is that we use “any” in the question form and in the negative form, and we use “some” in the positive form. For example:

Do you have any juice?

We don’t have any juice.

We have some juice.

Are there any paintings by Picasso in this museum?

There aren’t any paintings by Picasso in this museum.

There are some paintings by Picasso in this museum.

So, as you can see from my examples, it doesn’t matter if the nouns are countable or uncountable. However, if they are countable, you must put an “s” at the end of the word.

As I mentioned above, we use “any” for the question forms. However, sometimes we can also use “some” for the question form. There is a very subtle difference in meaning between the using “some” and “any” in the question: When we use “any” in the question, it means that we have absolutely no information about the answer. When we use “some” in the question, it means that we have some information that tells us a possible answer to the question. For example:

Do you have any juice?

(This means we have no information about whether the other persons keeps juice in their house because we’re probably visiting them for the first time.)

Do you have some juice?

(This means that we’ve probably visited them before and they had juice in the house  before. However, we don’t know if they have juice in the house right now.)

Let me give you some more examples:

Do we need to buy any apples?

Do you think we should buy some apples?

Do you need any more time to finish the test?

Would you like some more time to finish the test?

Do you have anything to drink?

Would you like something to drink?

So, as you can see from the last two sentences, the words “something” and “anything” can be used in questions following the same rules for “some” and “any”.

Also, please note that it’s very common to use “some” or “something” when making offers using “Would you like…?”.