ANSWER: "Follow" versus "Fallow"

[stoopbeck.livejournal.com]

Anonymous asks, "What is the difference between "follow" and "fallow"? With examples from the new Star Trek movie, Criminal Minds, and Burn Notice.



When writing, it's easy to get tripped up by words that look similar. While their meanings are very different, follow and fallow only differ in spelling by one letter. The best way to avoid confusion is to take a quick look at their definitions.

Here are a few for follow: "to come after in sequence, in order of time; to come or go after; to act in accordance with; to go in pursuit of." There are quite a few more (Dictionary.com lists 26) but you get the idea. If you follow something, you are going along with or after it.

"Now you just follow me to SickBay, Jim," Bones grumped, "it's been six months since your last physical."

Derek Morgan pointed to the crime scene photos. "This UnSub will follow the investigation closely, and will find a reason to insert himself if he feels we're not giving him the attention he thinks he deserves."

"If I'm going to be working for you, you're going to have to follow my lead," Michael Weston said.

According to Dictionary.com, fallow means "plowed and left unseeded for a season or more; uncultivated." It can also mean "not in use; inactive." So basically, if you're not doing anything with a place or an object or an idea, you've let it go fallow.

Spock quirked an eyebrow at Kirk. "You are saying, then, if Captain Pike had not approached you, you would have allowed your considerable talents to lie fallow?"

Jason Gideon pointed out the fallow field to Spencer Reid. "It's the perfect dumping ground," Gideon said. "Nobody's plowed that field in years."

Back when Michael Weston had been a spy, there had been months of crazed activity followed by fallow periods, during which he'd done everything he could to avoid going home.

To follow something, you have to actively pursue it. When something is fallow, it has been left alone.

Comments

[akasha-lilian.livejournal.com]

First time I hear the word fallow, so this was definitely useful! =)