vocabulary in use | high vs. great

[jon]

Hi all,

Sentence
s1 - "It is the centre of an industry of ___ importance"

Issues
i1 - Which is the correct one for this gap: "high" or "great"? I think only "great" is correct because of the "phisical dimensional" idea of high. Am I right??
i2 - If only one fits correctly, why not the other?

Thanks for helping !!
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(Feel free to correct mistakes in my post)

[Alan]

Hi,

Both adjectives convey the sense of 'to a considerable extent'. At the same time there are accepted and commonly used pairs of words. I would consider 'great' more acceptable with the noun 'importance' than 'high'. Conversely we would use the adverb form 'highly' with the adjective 'important' rather than 'greatly'.

Alan
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English as a Second Language
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