Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 351. Today the title is the
difference between council and counsel. All right. So counsel COUNCIL and
counsel COUNSEL. Okay. All right. Let's, let's actually look at some of the
similarities first. Let's start actually here. These two words can be confusing to
both ESL students you know, English of a second language and native speakers
because they are homonyms. All right. Homonyms. what are homonyms ? They have the same
sound. They're pronounced the same way. Their spelling is similar and their
pronunciation is almost exactly the same. So that in itself kind of makes them
confusing. And both have meanings related to advice .All right so that makes it more
confusing. Both terms also originate from the Latin word Concilium. Okay. So there
there are the similarities. Actually though the differences in meaning is kind of
clear. You can distinguish them and the uses are kind of clear. There is a clear
difference between them. It's not as confusing as some other words that we
often compare. But the fact that they sound the similar and are spelled
similar still makes them confusing. All right. So let's look at the first one.
Let's look at council. COUNCIL. All right. Now this is a noun. A council is
a group of people chosen to determine, decide and offer advice. You know. on some
particular issues or problems, especially officially. Like coming from you know, a
government. Now a lot of times, it's a local government or a small government
but that's what a council is or it could be formed for a special reason to deal
with some special problem. Another thing to note here is council is always a group
So council can't just... is not usually just one person. Not this COUNCIL, council.
That's, that's always a group. Okay. Now let's look at counsel , COUNSEL.
As a noun, a counsel is a lawyer. So this one could be a single person or a team
of lawyers. So it can also be a group but it's usually lawyers. It would be like a
group of lawyers on one side defending a particular person. So giving or giving it
legal advice maybe they don't defend them. Another company could hire them
just for legal advice too. Or representing them so either or. So again so the
counsel, COUNSEL could be a single person or group and it's always related
to lawyers. Now counsel, COUNSEL as a noun has
another meaning. It could mean the advice too. The advice that the lawyers give you.
They could give you counsel as well. So it could also literally be the advice
not just the group. Counsel. COUNSEL can also be a verb and as a verb it means to
give advice too. Okay. So yeah. We could we could just say this. You know, we throw
this in here. Ironically a council , COUNCIL could give counsel, COUNSEL
So here it would be the noun and they could also use the verb. So you
wonder why people could get confused. Okay. All right. And yeah basically we
just have some examples to show the differences of how they are used.
All right. Number one. We often hear of local areas having a City Council. Yeah.
So this would be a group that's formed to deal with certain problems, decide on
certain problems. This is one of the main ways that we hear council used. So again,
it's a group that's formed to deal with issues. Number two here. They formed a
council. So they gathered the people together to discuss and give advice on
this issue. So again, this is how we would use COUNCIL. All right. And the next two
of course is the one like with the S. Her counsel advised her to plead
insanity. So this would be either her lawyer
or her team of lawyers advised her to plead insanity. Well, that's usually
only in cases where you know it's a good chance you might be guilty or it might be related
to murder too. And maybe they don't think they can win the normal way. So they
might tell you to plead insanity like you're crazy. Maybe you'll get off easier.
Okay and number four. She sought the counsel of that wise sage. All right. So
here are the counsel's advice. You can seek the counsel of someone. So COUNSEL.
So that will always be ... that will always be with the COUNSEL when it means advice.
Of the wise sage you know, sage of course is a very you know, old wise man. Okay.
Anyway, I hope you got it . I hope it was clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your
time. Bye-bye.