We had a great question from a viewer called
Aurum last week. Aurum asked what’s the difference between
a dish and a plate? Some languages have only one word. A dish is a container or bowl. It’s usually pretty shallow, so not very
deep. We serve food from a dish and sometimes we
cook food in it too. But sometimes a dish is a particular type
of food that’s served as part of a meal. Like a fish dish or a pasta dish. A plate is flat and usually round. We put our food on it and eat from it. And in American English, a plate can also
be a whole main course of a meal. But not in British English. No? No. Aurum’s question looked simple, but when
you go deeper, it’s quite tricky. There are lots more words like this. Let’s look at some. What do we call this in our house, Jay? This is a mug. And why do we call it a mug? Because it has a handle and I drink coffee
out of it. OK. What’s the difference between a mug and
a cup? Well a mug doesn’t have a saucer and it’s
taller. OK. Then what’s this? Well, this is what we call your coffee cup. Cup! But it doesn’t have a saucer and it’s
tall. Yes, but it has curved sides and mugs have
straight sides. So we call this a cup because it has curved
sides. OK, what’s this? This is a bowl. And what’s this? That’s a bowl too. So size doesn’t matter. Well size always matters but in this case
what’s important is that they have curved sides. OK. What’s this? That’s a bowl. But it has straight sides. Yeah, but it’s a bowl. It isn’t a mug? No. Cups and mugs have handles and bowls don’t. OK. So this isn’t a bowl? Yes, I’d call that a bowl because it’s
bigger than a cup. But you just said size doesn’t matter for
bowls. OK. What about this? It’s a bowl. And not a plate, right? No, plates are flat. Bowls are deeper like that. But it’s also a dish. Why? Well, we share food from it. If we share food from it, it’s a dish. So it’s a bowl and a dish. Yes! Wow! That was confusing! Yes. It’s because the meaning of words often
overlap with other words. Another meaning starts before one meaning
has finished. So we call this a cup, but we could also call
it a mug. It’s part cup and part mug. Exactly. The boundaries between the words are fuzzy. There’s no clear dividing line between their
meanings. Are there more words like this? Oh yes, lots. What about the word game? What does game mean? You mean a board game like Monopoly, or a
card game like poker? Yes. Or a game like football or tennis. Or computer games. Or the Olympic Games. What do they all have in common? Well there’s competition. We compete against another person or another
team. If it’s a game we can win or lose. But there’s also the game of patience. We call that solitaire. It’s a card game you play on your own. And what if a child throws a ball against
a wall? It’s a game, but it’s not a competition. OK. Is it that games are all amusing and fun? Well, that’s often true, but some games
are quite serious like chess, or war games. Is it about skill? We need to learn and practice a game to play
well – like chess or football? They require skill. Skill can be important, but in some games,
you can win by chance. Like roulette or bingo. You don’t need skill to win them. So there are different features of the word
‘game’: competitive, amusing, skillful. But we don’t need all the features to call
something a game. Exactly. The meanings of words are often a group of
ideas that are similar. But they don’t all have to be true for the
meaning to work. They just have to have a family resemblance. OK. Here’s a big question. What does this mean if you’re learning English? It means words you have in your language might
not match English words exactly. They could be similar in some ways but different
in others. Because the word boundaries might be different. That’s right. And there’s some interesting research about
that. In the 1970s a psychologist, called Eleanor
Rosch, ran some experiments on prototypes. A prototype is a typical example of something. For example, she showed people lots of dogs
and asked them what’s the doggiest dog for you? A sheep dog, a bull dog, a collie, a dachshund,
a Pekingese? So she wasn’t asking what dogs people liked. She was asking what kind of dog is most typical
of all dogs. She asked the same question about lots of
different categories of things. For example birds, vegetables, toys, pieces
of furniture. And she discovered two things. The first one was people kept ranking things
in the same way. Their answers were very consistent. For example, most people thought a chair was
the best example of a piece of furniture and a lamp wasn’t very good. And the second thing Eleanor discovered was
very curious. People believed the words must share some
common features. So for example, they’d look at different
birds and say they’re birds because they can all fly. But a penguin can’t fly and an ostrich can’t
fly. Flying is a common feature of birds but it’s
not a necessary feature. People kept looking for necessary features
that don’t exist. So things in her categories shared some features,
but not all of them. Yeah, and the things that shared the most
features were the best prototypes. It was like the word ‘game’. Different games have some features in common,
but they don’t share all of them. Our brains want to think that words fit neatly
into categories and that there are clear boundaries where one word stops and another begins. But that’s not how it works. The meanings of words are fuzzy at the edges. You can’t always separate them with clear
lines. And this is something that’s true for all
languages. I have a question. What’s that? What’s the birdiest bird for you? Oh it’s the robin. Definitely. For me it’s the sparrow. Really? But robins are such a common bird. But in the UK, the most common bird is a sparrow. Wow. So maybe we have different ideas of what a
bird is. And maybe you have different ideas about birds,
or what dishes and plates are. Write and tell us in the comments if you do. And if you’ve enjoyed this video, please
share it with a friend. And Aurum, thank you for a great question. See you all next week everyone. Bye-bye. Bye.
