outlook vs look

chance

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Oct 24, 2011, 12:41:57 AM10/24/11

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Can't 'outlook' be interchangeable
with 'look' or 'appearance'?
I remember my English teacher
saying it's wrong to use 'outlook'
in the sense of 'appearance'.
Why, I've vindicated myself
on the point. Look! The online plain text
English dictionary and the online Webster
1913 Ok'd me. Hurrah!

Thanks
CK

Skitt

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Oct 24, 2011, 12:53:19 AM10/24/11

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Here are the current common definitions from M-W Online:

Definition of OUTLOOK
1 a: a place offering a view
b: a view from a particular place
2: point of view <a positive outlook on life>
3: the act of looking out
4: the prospect for the future <the outlook for steel demand in the
United States — Wall Street Journal>

Definition of LOOK
1 a: the act of looking
b: glance
2 a: the expression of the countenance
b: physical appearance; especially: attractive physical appearance
—usually used in plural
c: a combination of design features giving a unified appearance <a
new look in women's fashions>
3: the state or form in which something appears

As you can see, there are none that make the two words synonymous.
--
Skitt (SF Bay Area)
http://come.to/skitt

Marius Hancu

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Oct 24, 2011, 4:40:40 AM10/24/11

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On Oct 24, 12:41 am, "chance" <cinci...@yahoo.co.kr> wrote:

> Can't 'outlook' be interchangeable
> with 'look' or 'appearance'?

Not according to what is perhaps the best synonym dictionary:
http://tinyurl.com/3hw9va9
which indicates as possible synonyms for "outlook":
prospect, anticipation, foretaste

Marius Hancu

abzorba

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Oct 24, 2011, 4:58:15 AM10/24/11

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Your confidence is refreshing, if deluded. It reminds me strangely
enough of myself in earlier times, and foreign climes. Ah that was
only youth, but then, so is this....

"Outlook", in its sense of an imaginative view, most often points to
the near future as in "The isobars suggest a grim weather outlook", or
to a general tendency of someone’s personality to see matters in some
light or other, as in “His optimistic outlook led him to see his
friend’s dilemmas as having some natural and beneficent solution.” As
such “outlooks” do not normally refer to simple appearance, but to
matters which are beyond the superficial.

Myles (my own outlook is that the wacky will always triumph) Paulsen

Duggy

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Oct 24, 2011, 8:33:50 AM10/24/11

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If you want to force it you can use view poetically to mean
appearance.

"She had a pleasant view".

===
= DUG.
===

Don Phillipson

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Oct 24, 2011, 8:18:55 AM10/24/11

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"chance" <cinc...@yahoo.co.kr> wrote in message
news:j82qad$8no$1...@dont-email.me...

> Can't 'outlook' be interchangeable
> with 'look' or 'appearance'?
> I remember my English teacher
> saying it's wrong to use 'outlook'
> in the sense of 'appearance'.

Your teacher was right but only half right
(omitting the positive uses of aspect etc.)

Some English words are "interchangeable"
with their synonyms, but many are not. No
formal rules govern this. All we can do is
compare:
-- the "natural geography" of ideas as recorded
in Roget's Thesaurus et. sim.
-- natural uses of language (written or oral),

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

chance

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Oct 24, 2011, 8:58:01 AM10/24/11

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"Duggy" <Paul....@jcu.edu.au> wrote in message
news:e225af1a-1916-46ca...@p20g2000prm.googlegroups.com...

chance

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Oct 24, 2011, 9:05:17 AM10/24/11

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"Duggy" <Paul....@jcu.edu.au> wrote >

If you want to force it you can use view poetically to mean
appearance.

"She had a pleasant view".

Is it a bullshit poetic license?
Why not 'a pleasant appearance'?

Thanks
CK

Skitt

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Oct 24, 2011, 2:35:33 PM10/24/11

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It doesn't work for me.