Revert And Get Back

I have decide that I should expand the discussion on words with very close meanings, and include phrases with close meanings as well. Afterall, my target is to point out the most common errors and misunderstandings on usage of English words and phrase, so as to benefit more to those who reads my blog.

Let me introduce Revert and Get Back. In my area of work where I have to deal with hundreds of emails every week ( I am considered lucky. I have heard thousands!), I practically come across the phrase, "please kindly revert to me by *some-dates*" you may wish to know that this phrase is wrong.

Revert as a verb, refers to returning back to previous state, position, configurations, status. Example: our company has reverted back to a 5-day working week, after realizing that staff's productivity is low on Saturday.

Is there a need to explain Get Back? Yes! Let's make it simple, it means either to reply or an eye for an eye. Example, please kindly get back to me on the attendance.OR I admit I used her to get back at him.

Humble And Modest

Most of us probably encountered the word Humble first before Modest. My first encounter of Modest was during my secondary (High) school days. Modesty is part of the school motto, and till the day I graduated from university, I still thought that modest was equivalent to humble.

I really wanted to say that both adjectives mean the same. Even the dictionaries show examples that to a certain extent, that both words can be used interchangebly. However, I had came across sources which show that they do have different meanings.

Humble refers to being unpretentious, not arrogant, submission, and some degree of inferiority. Example, He expresses his humble apologies. OR  He came from a humble background.

Modest refers to not bragging about one's achievements. In some cases, equivalent to limited size, amount or capacity. For example. Although he is a top student in this year, he remains modest about his results. OR He is earning a modest income to support the family.

Infer And Conclude

I have to admit that this is tricky, and these two words are very commonly used interchangeably. So what is the difference? In order to provide a good answer to these, I have to dig into multiple dictionaries.

Both words are verbs. Let's start with Infer. Infer usually refers to deducing based on evidence, facts or what was seen, e.g. visible, or an action of suggesting or implying. He infers that the failure of the team is partly due to my incompetency.

Conclude refers to reaching a decision or opinion, with evidence and facts. This decision or opinion is usually final, which means it doesn't make sense for a person to conclude an issue now and and conclude again on the same issue an hour later, unless there is a major decrepancies on the evidence or facts. A good example would be the usage in the final paragraph of a report where you will draw the conclusion. The project team has concluded, after assessing the risks, that the disaster will not affect the project schedule.