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  • Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 351. Today the title is the

  • difference between council and counsel. All right. So counsel COUNCIL and

  • counsel COUNSEL. Okay. All right. Let's, let's actually look at some of the

  • similarities first. Let's start actually here. These two words can be confusing to

  • both ESL students you know, English of a second language and native speakers

  • because they are homonyms. All right. Homonyms. what are homonyms ? They have the same

  • sound. They're pronounced the same way. Their spelling is similar and their

  • pronunciation is almost exactly the same. So that in itself kind of makes them

  • confusing. And both have meanings related to advice .All right so that makes it more

  • confusing. Both terms also originate from the Latin word Concilium. Okay. So there

  • there are the similarities. Actually though the differences in meaning is kind of

  • clear. You can distinguish them and the uses are kind of clear. There is a clear

  • difference between them. It's not as confusing as some other words that we

  • often compare. But the fact that they sound the similar and are spelled

  • similar still makes them confusing. All right. So let's look at the first one.

  • Let's look at council. COUNCIL. All right. Now this is a noun. A council is

  • a group of people chosen to determine, decide and offer advice. You know. on some

  • particular issues or problems, especially officially. Like coming from you know, a

  • government. Now a lot of times, it's a local government or a small government

  • but that's what a council is or it could be formed for a special reason to deal

  • with some special problem. Another thing to note here is council is always a group

  • So council can't just... is not usually just one person. Not this COUNCIL, council.

  • That's, that's always a group. Okay. Now let's look at counsel , COUNSEL.

  • As a noun, a counsel is a lawyer. So this one could be a single person or a team

  • of lawyers. So it can also be a group but it's usually lawyers. It would be like a

  • group of lawyers on one side defending a particular person. So giving or giving it

  • legal advice maybe they don't defend them. Another company could hire them

  • just for legal advice too. Or representing them so either or. So again so the

  • counsel, COUNSEL could be a single person or group and it's always related

  • to lawyers. Now counsel, COUNSEL as a noun has

  • another meaning. It could mean the advice too. The advice that the lawyers give you.

  • They could give you counsel as well. So it could also literally be the advice

  • not just the group. Counsel. COUNSEL can also be a verb and as a verb it means to

  • give advice too. Okay. So yeah. We could we could just say this. You know, we throw

  • this in here. Ironically a council , COUNCIL could give counsel, COUNSEL

  • So here it would be the noun and they could also use the verb. So you

  • wonder why people could get confused. Okay. All right. And yeah basically we

  • just have some examples to show the differences of how they are used.

  • All right. Number one. We often hear of local areas having a City Council. Yeah.

  • So this would be a group that's formed to deal with certain problems, decide on

  • certain problems. This is one of the main ways that we hear council used. So again,

  • it's a group that's formed to deal with issues. Number two here. They formed a

  • council. So they gathered the people together to discuss and give advice on

  • this issue. So again, this is how we would use COUNCIL. All right. And the next two

  • of course is the one like with the S. Her counsel advised her to plead

  • insanity. So this would be either her lawyer

  • or her team of lawyers advised her to plead insanity. Well, that's usually

  • only in cases where you know it's a good chance you might be guilty or it might be related

  • to murder too. And maybe they don't think they can win the normal way. So they

  • might tell you to plead insanity like you're crazy. Maybe you'll get off easier.

  • Okay and number four. She sought the counsel of that wise sage. All right. So

  • here are the counsel's advice. You can seek the counsel of someone. So COUNSEL.

  • So that will always be ... that will always be with the COUNSEL when it means advice.

  • Of the wise sage you know, sage of course is a very you know, old wise man. Okay.

  • Anyway, I hope you got it . I hope it was clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your

  • time. Bye-bye.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 351. Today the title is the

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