Vocabulary

[jiang]

Dear teachers,

Please decide which is correct:

The students were generally _________ and direct in their comments on how course work could be better presented.

a. polite b. frank

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you in advance.

Jiang

[Tdol]

I would go for 'frank' as their honesty is more important here than their manners.

[jiang]

Yes. The key is 'frank'.

I would go for 'frank' as their honesty is more important here than their manners.

[RonBee]

Can you be both polite and direct? I would tend not to pick direct there because of the rather obvious redundancy, but I suppose direct is in there as a cue to the reader.

In some (especially Asian) societies directness is seen as rude. Perhaps that has relevance here.

:)

[Tdol]

Interesting idea.

[RonBee]

If a person says "Let me be frank with you" you expect him to be honest and direct. You don't expect him to pussyfoot around.

I would think that the students could be direct yet still be polite. I would hope they could be.

:)

[jiang]

The key is direct but considerring what RonBee said. If direct has the same meaning as frank, is it correct to use polite to indicate the students' attitude and frank their manner. In this case two words cover two aspects. If we use direct and frank that is a way of emphasizing author's meaning. Am I right?

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Jiang

I would go for 'frank' as their honesty is more important here than their manners.

[MikeNewYork]

The key is direct but considerring what RonBee said. If direct has the same meaning as frank, is it correct to use polite to indicate the students' attitude and frank their manner. In this case two words cover two aspects. If we use direct and frank that is a way of emphasizing author's meaning. Am I right?

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Jiang

I would go for 'frank' as their honesty is more important here than their manners.

"Frank" and "direct" do not have the same meanings. But, they do tend to go together. This is the reason that "direct" is the best answer. The pther answer would be grammatical, however. :wink: