Width and breadth

[WTFH]

What's the difference between the two? I'm trying to explain to a German colleague and failing.

This won't help:
Wide comes from the old Germanic "Weit"
Broad comes from the old Germanic "Breit"


So, ask your Bavarian friend to explain. Best done over a half dunkel at the Weihenstephan Abbey.

[VectraMan]

So why does English have two words to explain the same thing?

Because it's a stupid language.

Learning French and German you see how much English is a mishmash of the two. I.e. begin vs commence, end vs finish, leave vs depart, firm vs company. Hope is German but the opposite: despair is French.

[PurpleGorilla]

Width and breadth

What's the difference between the two? I'm trying to explain to a German colleague and failing.

If it was a bridge, then the breadth is the gap/span and the width would be how many lanes you can get in parallel over it.

Use Pegasus bridge as an example ;-)

[scooterscot]

Because it's a stupid language.

Learning French and German you see how much English is a mishmash of the two. I.e. begin vs commence, end vs finish, leave vs depart, firm vs company. Hope is German but the opposite: despair is French.

The more Deutsch I'm exposed too the more English synonyms I'm confused by. Any attempt to reason the difference and it's Kopfschmerzen zeit.

I'd have a rant about cognates n all, it's like English in a cunning disguise, as Baldrick would say.

[NickFitz]

Because it's a stupid language.

Learning French and German you see how much English is a mishmash of the two. I.e. begin vs commence, end vs finish, leave vs depart, firm vs company. Hope is German but the opposite: despair is French.

That's because the English people are a mishmash resulting from multiple waves of immigration. The only native British people are Welsh and Scottish, and have their own languages