9. Contents/content

Contents is what you find in some form of container: the contents of a bottle, bag, box, book, and so on. Make sure you use the plural. In other languages you use the singular. Content is the presence of one element in another, often expressed as a percentage or proportion: the water content in my glass of wine, the copper content in an aluminium alloy, etc. The content (singular) of a book or a speech can also mean the essential element: It's a bestseller but devoid of serious content.

10. Continuous/continual

Continuous means without interruption, all the time, non-stop: There is a continuous performance from four to eleven. Continual means very frequent: They are notorious for their continual complaints. Nobody can complain 'continuously'. People have to sleep some of the time. Note: Constant is near in meaning to continuous, but not quite non-stop: her constant companion, constant headache, constant worries.

11. Customer/client

A customer buys goods and pays a price. A client buys professional services and pays a fee. Professional services are provided by lawyers, architects, accountants, and various consultants, who do not sell goods but give information or advice in some form or other. Doctors and dentists are also part of the professional group. They have patients and charge a fee. The English word profession means the same as in your language: He is a carpenter by profession. She is a professional tennis player. The English expression the professions, however, refers to a group of activities that require academic training, a university education: He is not sure yet, but will probably go in for one of the professions.

12. Definite/definitive

Definite means certain, clearly defined: Their arrival time is now definite. Definitive means final, often implying not merely the last, but also the best: It is probably the definitive book on the Vietnam war. This sentence means that the author has treated the subject so much better than anyone before him, that it will be the book on the war in Vietnam.

13. Department/division

In one of your idle moments - perhaps when sitting at your desk in the office this morning - you may have been wondering whether there is any difference between these two words. If you are thinking about the organization in a company, American usage prefers division for all but the tiniest sections in a firm: Chemical Division, Marketing Division, Export Division. British usage has always preferred department, reserving division for major integrated parts of a company: Export Department, Marketing Department, Consumer Products Division. Division, with its military connotation, somehow sounds more impressive than department. That must be the reason why companies outside North America tend to use it increasingly for modest departments that would previously not have qualified for this distinction. This idea that the division is bigger than department is reversed when it comes to the government. Then department is really the big thing. The State Department, for example, is that vast United States ministry known in other countries as Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Ministry, Ministry for External Affairs, and similar more descriptive terms. (It is called Foreign Office in the UK).