Did you realise that rectify, rectangle, direction, correct, etc – are all related?
The penny dropped for me when as a first year medical student, in an anatomy lecture, I heard that the word rectum signifies the straight shape of that part of the bowel.
Had to be told about the origin of the word Ukraine as the borderlands – and not quite sure I buy it.
A general stickler and former editor, I immediately caught on to the peculiar language.
To me, listening just means perceiving sound, albeit attentively. Hearing means taking it in. And, hearing = listening + understanding.
I don’t think the dictionaries (Oxford) agree with me:
hear
listen
give one’s attention to a sound
My one argument is that the verb listen can be used in the continuous, whereas hear is more perfect:
“I hear you”
“I am listening to you”
means I will take in all these sounds you make, but there is no guarantee it will make sense to me.
