What is the difference between “jump” and “jump off” or “peel” and “peel off” in English?
It is a subtle but important difference and we’ll show what it is today.
Today we start with a question from our listener:
Here we have a listener question
Hi Lindsay!
I’m Gabriel from Chile and I’m writing because I’ve got a question and I haven’t been able to find an answer on internet, I hope you can help me, so the question is:
When would you use peel vs peel off or jump vs off? It sounds the same to me, because every time you are jumping you’re doing it off a surface. I found some random examples on
internet which are: Could you peel the carrots?, the rider was thrown as the horse jumped the fence. To me adding “off” is redundant so, when would you use “off” and when not as a native speaker?
Many thanks in advance, keep up your amazing work!
Saludos 🙂
To Peel: Taking something off of something else
Example: peel the potatoes
Peel off-You are focusing on the actual item you are peeling OFF of something else
Example: Peel the skin off the potatoes
Another example-peeling can be used with skin after a sunburn..
Example: My skin is peeling
Jump off
If you are just jumping up and down, maybe you are dancing or if you are excited about something you could just say “jump.”
If you are actually jumping from a higher surface to a lower surface, you can say “jump off.”
For example, “Did you hear? A man jumped off a building down the street last night.”
Bonuses:
Call v. call off-call on the phone, cancel
Put v. put off-put something down or postpone
What questions do you have today?
Let us know in the comments below.
