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Distinguish among ---> Wrong or Right?

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omidsa
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Distinguish among ---> Wrong or Right? [#permalink] New post   30 Jun 2012, 01:34
I have searched OG12 for idiomatic phrases of distinguish and I found these : ‘to distinguish x from y’ and ‘distinguish between x and y’


Besides I found this in CR 52 :

q27-rye-sown-in-the-fall-and-plowed-into-the-soil-in-early-48860.html

'distinguish among the various kinds of synthetic herbicides'

So the question is do we have "distinguish among" ? or Not?
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santivilla
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Re: Distinguish among ---> Wrong or Right? [#permalink] New post   03 Jul 2012, 10:24
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@omidsa

Right! But! there are a couple of things you should be wary about.

1st. The idiomatic form "distinguish between x and y " is an expression that the GMAT considers correct.
The idiomatic form "distinguish x from y" is an expressions that the GMAT seems to avoid if possible. This expression is
sometimes grammatically correct, but it may be wordy, controversial, or simply less preferred than the other form.

2nd. “between” should be used for choices involving two items and “among” for choices that involve more than two items. The
answer to your question is yes. If you want to make a distinction among various items (more than two) you should use "distinguish among".
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apolo
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Re: Distinguish among ---> Wrong or Right? [#permalink] New post   23 Mar 2015, 07:14
Hence, is 'distinguish among' idiomatic, when it is used for more than two items?
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earnit
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Re: Distinguish among ---> Wrong or Right? [#permalink] New post   23 Mar 2015, 10:06
omidsa wrote:
I have searched OG12 for idiomatic phrases of distinguish and I found these : ‘to distinguish x from y’ and ‘distinguish between x and y’


Besides I found this in CR 52 :

q27-rye-sown-in-the-fall-and-plowed-into-the-soil-in-early-48860.html

'distinguish among the various kinds of synthetic herbicides'

So the question is do we have "distinguish among" ? or Not?



GMAC the creators of GMAT have time and again hinted on the fact that there focus in SC is more on Meaning and Less on idioms. Having said that, its advisable to be well versed with the most common idioms but not to get carried away and start learning new ones with a huge list.

Distinguish between X and Y is the most common idiom used.
Distinction between X and Y is again the same thing.

As far as categorizing on the basis of numbers is concerned, here's a basic list:

>2 (people/things): Among, most, Best, Least, Worst

Correspondingly for 2 (people/things): Between, more, Better, Lesser, Worse

Hope it helps! :)
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Re: Distinguish among ---> Wrong or Right? [#permalink] New post   23 Mar 2015, 12:43
earnit wrote:
omidsa wrote:
I have searched OG12 for idiomatic phrases of distinguish and I found these : ‘to distinguish x from y’ and ‘distinguish between x and y’


Besides I found this in CR 52 :

q27-rye-sown-in-the-fall-and-plowed-into-the-soil-in-early-48860.html

'distinguish among the various kinds of synthetic herbicides'

So the question is do we have "distinguish among" ? or Not?



GMAC the creators of GMAT have time and again hinted on the fact that there focus in SC is more on Meaning and Less on idioms. Having said that, its advisable to be well versed with the most common idioms but not to get carried away and start learning new ones with a huge list.

Distinguish between X and Y is the most common idiom used.
Distinction between X and Y is again the same thing.

As far as categorizing on the basis of numbers is concerned, here's a basic list:

>2 (people/things): Among, most, Best, Least, Worst

Correspondingly for 2 (people/things): Between, more, Better, Lesser, Worse

Hope it helps! :)


So, again, we can conclude that for distinguishing between more than 2 things, we should use 'distinguish among'?! :)
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Re: Distinguish among ---> Wrong or Right? [#permalink] New post   19 Apr 2015, 21:28
NEVER care this split, gmat will not test this split because this split is not basic. focus on grammatical roles of entities in the sentence and find out the meaning relation between modifiers and their head words, a verb or a noun, is logic or not
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Re: Distinguish among ---> Wrong or Right? [#permalink]
19 Apr 2015, 21:28
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