A Good Fit: Fits and Matches
| This is an entry in the A Good Fit series. You can find more information at the series’ main page.
This entry is available as a Adobe Acrobat file for printing or use in a class. This entry includes a listening exercises. You can dowload the MP3 or play it using the button below. (MP3) |
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When we talk about things that go well together—like you and your job, I hope—we use the words ‘fit‘ and ‘match.’ Sometimes, the words can be used interchangeably, but they really have different meanings.
Before You Listen to the Recording
Ask yourself a few questions: do you already know the words? Can you use them in a sentence? If you don’t know the words, why do you think that your job in like your clothes? Why would I start talking about job vocabulary by talking about clothes?
Take a moment to think about your job, and about yourself. Do you enjoy your job? Why? Do your friends and family think it’s the right job for you? Why? Keep these things in your mind when you listen to the recording. They’ll help you use the vocabulary we’re going to learn.
Now listen to the recoding.
After Your Listen
Was your first idea about the meanings of fit and match—and the difference between the two words—right? Can you give an example now of how your job fits you? Remember: you can write it in the comments and I’ll correct it for you!
Now that you have the words, it’s important to practice them. These are pretty easy words to practice, however: as you go through the day, think about the different ways things fit or match. Does your mood—the way you’re feeling—match the weather? Do your co-worker’s clothes fit her personality? How many other things can you find that fit? Or that match?
Vocabulary
Interchangeable: My car has five wheels. It sounds funny, but it does. It has an extra wheel—called a ’spare’—in case there’s a problem with one of the ‘normal’ four wheels. I can use the spare tire in the place of the other tires. The tires are interchangeable. The word interchangeable means that you can use one or the other and the result is the same. If I drive my car with a normal wheel or with the spare, it drives the same. That’s the meaning of interchangeable. Interchangeable words have the same meanings, in some contexts.
Fit: When I was a boy, my family didn’t have the money to always buy me new clothes. So, I often had to wear the clothes that were too small for my big brother. Some of these clothes were too big for me. Others were too small. When clothes are too big or too small, they don’t fit. Fit is a word meaning ‘just the right size.’ If your job fits you, it has just the right amount of stress, and just the right amount of hard work for you.
Match: Have you ever seen someone wearing one black sock and one white sock? It looks a little silly, doesn’t it? Both socks fit, normally. That is, they’re the right size for that person’s feet, but the socks don’t belong together. They don’t match. Things that match belong together, or ‘look right’ together. My wife often tells me that my clothes don’t match. I think my job does match me, though. I feel like an English teacher, I belong in this job. Another thing that can match are people: my sister is nothing like her husband, but somehow, when you see them together you know that they make a pair: they match.
