{"id":2413,"date":"2015-11-12T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2015-11-12T17:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=2413"},"modified":"2020-12-10T13:44:47","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T21:44:47","slug":"tell-vs-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/tell-vs-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Tell vs. Say: Are You Using The Right Word?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is our blog\u2019s latest in a series of posts about words that have similar\u2026 but not <em>quite<\/em> the same meanings. Last time, we looked at the subtle differences in the prepositions \u201camong\u201d and \u201cbetween\u201d.\u00a0Today, we\u2019re moving on from prepositions to look at two verbs: \u201ctell,\u201d and \u201csay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>These two words are <em>very<\/em> similar. So similar that I often see English language learners use both verbs in all of the same ways. Many of my students are surprised when I <strong>tell<\/strong> them that the two words should <em>not<\/em> be used in the same way, and that they should <strong>say <\/strong>these words more carefully when they speak. If you\u2019re also surprised by that advice, look carefully at the previous sentence. Can you spot the difference in how I used \u201ctell\u201d and \u201csay\u201d? Can you guess the grammar rule? Give yourself a moment to guess, then look below to see if you guessed correctly.<\/p>\n<p>SCROLL\u2026.<\/p>\n<p>DOWN\u2026.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026.FOR THE ANSWER.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Rule 1:<\/em><\/strong><em> When \u201ctell\u201d has a direct object, the direct object should be a person, a group of people, or a story<\/em><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><em>Examples:<\/em> <\/strong>I told him to meet me here at 5 o\u2019clock. The big screen in the airport tells the schedule of every flight. My dad tells such great bedtime stories\u2014he doesn\u2019t even need to read them from a book! The manager told all of the new work regulations to the employees.Basically, if you \u201ctell\u201d something, you are giving information to someone. \u201cTelling\u201d always involves the transmission of information to a thinking audience that receives it. Because of this, the only time that the direct object of \u201ctell\u201d is not a person is when the direct object of \u201ctell\u201d is a complicated piece of information, such as a story, or a detailed set of instructions. Detailed pieces of information almost always have an audience\u2014stories, instructions, etc\u2026 are meant to be understood by other people. Smaller words or ideas do not necessarily have an audience or communicate a clear, complete message.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Rule 2: <\/em><\/strong><em><em>When \u201csay\u201d has a direct object, the direct object must be information.<\/em><\/em><strong>Rule 2a: <\/strong>If the object of \u201csay\u201d is information communicated to an audience, it must be simple information.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><strong><em>Examples:<\/em><\/strong> The teacher said the word, and the students spelled the word on the \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 exam sheet. She said it was a bad idea. He said the name of his favorite television<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em> Rule 2b: <\/em><\/strong><em>If the object of \u201csay\u201d is information that is <strong>not<\/strong><\/em> <em>communicated to anyone, the information can be complicated or simple.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><strong><em>Examples:<\/em><\/strong> No one knows what is said in her diary, because she doesn\u2019t show her\u00a0 diary to anyone. The tour guide couldn\u2019t understand if the tourist had said \u201cyes\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 or \u201cno,\u201d because the tourist was speaking in a foreign language.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Rule 3:<\/em><\/strong><em> If \u201ctell\u201d or \u201csay\u201d don\u2019t have a direct object, a direct object should be <strong>implied<\/strong>.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px;\"><strong><em>Examples:<\/em><\/strong> What bedtime story will mom tell tonight? I wanted to know what \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 they were thinking, but they didn\u2019t say.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">In the example sentences above, the nouns mentioned at the beginning of the sentence are <em>implied<\/em> to be the direct objects of the verbs \u201ctell\u201d and \u201csay.\u201d It\u2019s easy to infer that mom will tell a bedtime story, and it\u2019s clear that \u201cthey\u201d didn\u2019t say whatever they were thinking.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">There can be even simpler sentences where the noun\/object isn\u2019t said at all, but is still implied. \u201cHe didn\u2019t tell\u201d implies that someone didn\u2019t tell a person something, or didn\u2019t give out a complicated piece of information. \u201cShe didn\u2019t say\u201d suggests that a word, fact, or some other piece of information is not being said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">In this way, \u201ctell\u201d and \u201csay\u201d are never truly<em> intransitive<\/em>\u2014in contrast to transitive verbs such as \u201crun\u201d and \u201csleep,\u201d \u201ctell\u201d and \u201csay\u201d must always have an object, whether that object is stated or unstated.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2>A \u201cgray area\u201d in the rules<\/h2>\n<p>There is a \u201cgray area\u201d between rules 1 and 2a above. By this I mean that there are times when you could follow one rule or the other. Sometimes it can be hard to say whether a piece of information is complicated enough that it should be \u201ctold\u201d and not \u201csaid.\u201d For instance, how complicated is the flight information on an airport display? You could argue that the big neon signs in airports <em>tell<\/em> when the flights depart, or that they <em>say<\/em> when the flights depart.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is our blog\u2019s latest in a series of posts about words that have similar\u2026 but not quite the same meanings. Last time, we looked at the subtle differences in the prepositions \u201camong\u201d and \u201cbetween\u201d.\u00a0Today, we\u2019re moving on from prepositions to look at two verbs: \u201ctell,\u201d and \u201csay.\u201d These two words are very similar. So [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13604],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13630],"class_list":["post-2413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vocab"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.7 (Yoast SEO v21.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tell vs. Say: Are You Using The Right Word? - Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/tell-vs-say\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tell vs. Say: Are You Using The Right Word?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is our blog\u2019s latest in a series of posts about words that have similar\u2026 but not quite the same meanings. 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Additionally, he's helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT. David has a BS and MA from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshEnglishLearning","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/david-recine\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCra3KQoJlOP7RYwaCyH2qew"],"knowsAbout":["TOEFL","IELTS","TOEIC","PET","FCE","BULATS","Eiken","SAT","ACT","GRE","GMAT"],"knowsLanguage":["English","Italian"],"jobTitle":"Content Creator","worksFor":"Magoosh","url":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/author\/davidr\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":13630,"user_id":80,"is_guest":0,"slug":"davidr","display_name":"David Recine","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b70c17ee6f3ef87dc4cc5dbdebda911d6dd30dfe15845e4b1d459a3e1b33ef98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"Recine","first_name":"David","description":"David is a Test Prep Expert for Magoosh TOEFL and IELTS. Additionally, he's helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT.\r\n\r\nDavid has a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. His work at Magoosh has been cited in<a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar?hl=en&amp;as_sdt=0%2C50&amp;q=Recine+magoosh&amp;btnG=\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> many scholarly articles<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/minds.wisconsin.edu\/handle\/1793\/65479\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> his Master's Thesis<\/a> is featured on the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.readingwithpictures.org\/2013\/09\/research-highlight-teaching-english-language-learners-with-comics\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Reading with Pictures<\/a> website, and he's presented at the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.witesol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/2014-WITESOL-Program-FINAL-10-28-14.pdf\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> WITESOL (link to PDF)<\/a> and<a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/interoff\/docs\/nafsaregionv_2014conference\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> NAFSA<\/a> conferences. David has taught K-12 ESL in South Korea as well as undergraduate English and MBA-level business English at American universities. He has also trained English teachers in America, Italy, and Peru.\r\n\r\nCome join David and the Magoosh team on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCra3KQoJlOP7RYwaCyH2qew\"> Youtube<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshEnglishLearning\"> Facebook<\/a>, and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/magooshenglish\/?hl=en\"> Instagram<\/a>, or connect with him via<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/david-recine\/\"> LinkedIn<\/a>!"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=2413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}