Get to know vs. recognize

[laur]

Test No. errors/advan-2 "Please, remind me", question 6

The point of these events is to give colleagues a chance to recognize each other better.

(a) of
(b) to give
(c) recognize
(d) other

Test No. errors/advan-2 "Please, remind me", answer 6

The point of these events is to give colleagues a chance to get to know each other better.

Correct entry: get to know
The error was: (c) recognize
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what's the correct answer to this?

[Alan]

Hi,

Do you mean the difference between the two? Recognize is to know who somebody is because you know what they look like. Get to know is to learn some more about somebody the more you meet/see them.

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Present Simple

[Kuti]

hi i wonder if it is possible to use know in this question

thanks in advance..

[Alan]

You need get to know here because it refers to a process taking place at the event.
_________________
English as a Foreign Language
You can read my EFL story Progressive Forms

[Angus77]

As a native speaker, I was assuming that "recognize" was meant in the "give recognition" sense. (The word "colleagues" had me thinking so).

[Beeesneees]

If 'recognize' meant 'give recognition' then the sentence would be highly unlikely to end with '... each other better'.
The point of these events is to give colleagues a chance to get to recognize each others' achievements/ success/ efforts, etc. would be used, or just
The point of these events is to give colleagues a chance to recognize each other.
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Cheers m' dears!

[Angus77]

You think so? Who do colleagues recognize, if not each other? And you can give recognition much better in person than in the journals (for example).

As a native speaker, I actually read it that way (that's why I had to check the answer---I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was wrong with the sentence).

Maybe it's one of those UK English vs NA English things, but where I come from that would be a perfectly natural thing to say.

[Beeesneees]

As a native speaker, I didn't even consider that it would be used in the way you see it, because of the 'better' at the end.
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Cheers m' dears!

[Alan]

Hi Angus77,

If you look at the whole sentence indicating that this is an event and the purpose of it is for colleagues to socialise, the phrase 'get to know better' seems to fit. If these people are colleagues, better recognition would be an odd purpose and an even odder event, wouldn't it?

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Passive Voice

[Angus77]

I never said 'get to know' didn't fit, and, yes, it certainly fits better. That's not what I'm disputing at all. Just because there's a _better_ answer doesn't mean the original was wrong.

I don't see how colleagues couldn't give each other 'better' recognition. As I already stated above, that's exactly how I read it: Colleagues formally getting together to give each other live, in-person recognition, as that would be better than merely publishing it online or in a journal (for example). The fact that you didn't read it that way on first pass does not make it an invalid reading. Can either of you actually point out where, objectively, that reading fails?

[Beeesneees]

We already have.
_________________
Cheers m' dears!

[Alan]

Hi,

What sort of process is

[Angus77]

@beeesneees You haven't. You've given me examples of what you believe would be _better_ sentences, not where the original sentence was actually invalid. Two _very_ separate things. And I maintain the sentence is _not_ invalid until I'm shown otherwise, _not_ merely when I'm shown a more elegantly-written sentence.

@Alan I honestly don't know what you're trying to get at with that last statement. What's obvious is that you're trying to be inflammatory rather than deal with the subject at hand.

My point is that worse/better and right/wrong are two completely separate issues. Do either of you disagree? If you do, then we're talking at cross purposes. If you don't, then you should be able to show how the sentence is actually wrong, not where it could be written better.

Or you can just take to insulting me for having interpreted the sentence differently from you. I hope it (no longer) devolves into that.

[Beeesneees]

I'm afrais we are never going to agree on this.
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Cheers m' dears!

[Angus77]

Meaning you don't agree that better/worse is different from right/wrong? Then we're all wasting our time, and a poorly-chosen sentence will never get fixed.