medium-sized / middle-sized

[Verona_82]

Hello,

A question in my test reads as follows:

A monkey is a _________ animal.
a) middle-sized b) medium-sized


I feel that a monkey is a medium-sized animal, but the options given made me think about the difference between the two. When do we use medium-sized, and when do we use middle-sized?
The Macmillan dictionary draws no distinction between the two.
middle-sized town
medium-sized sausepan

Could somebody please comment on using these adjectives?

Thank you.

 

[Verona_82]

I've just looked up the words in LDOCE.
a medium-sized business / a middle-sized company

Looks like there's no substantial difference between the two, BUT it's still a medium-sized animal :roll:

I'm struggling to find any guidelines, but if they are just collocations (and I've come across a bad question), I'll have to face up to this fact.

 

[5jj]

I'm struggling to find any guidelines, but if they are just collocations (and I've come across a bad question), I'll have to face up to this fact.

I didn't respond when you first posted your question because, although I would have chosen 'medium-sized', I couldn't think of any good reason for rejecting 'middle-sized'. I still can't.

I certainly think it was not a good test question.

 

[bhaisahab]

I didn't respond when you first posted your question because, although I would have chosen 'medium-sized', I couldn't think of any good reason for rejecting 'middle-sized'. I still can't.

I certainly think it was not a good test question.

I think in BrE it's much more common to say "medium-sized".

 

[Verona_82]

Thank you.
The test is for pre-intermediate students. (!) This reminds me of the purposefully/ purposely case, but it was my mother tongue that helped me that time. The translations of these -sized adjectives are indentical.

I wish authors thought more when writing tests for foreign learners.

 

[5jj]

I wish authors thought more when writing tests for foreign learners.

I'd be happy if some of them thought at all.

 

[bhaisahab]

I'd be happy if some of them thought at all.

Unfortunately ESL is commercial and largely unregulated. Get monkeys to write tests, pay them peanuts, make more money.

 

[nyota]

I couldn't find any definite distinction between the two and I see it's not obvious to NESs either. It might well be that it's a matter of collocates. MacMillan and Oxford seem to support what bhai said, that middle-sized is more common in AmE:
Oxford-midsize, MacMillan-middle-sized

Middle-sized can also be shortened to (acc. to those dictionaries): mid-sized, midsized, midsize.

 

[BobK]

Get monkeys to write tests...

How big? ;-)

(FWIW, I'd call them medium-sized. When I think about, I fancy I use 'medium- sized' as a general expression of size, and 'middle-sized' as an expression of rank in sizes: 'a big one, a middle-sized one and a little one'. But this 'fancy' may be an example of the sort of "distinction for distinctions' sake" that 5jj has mentioned elsewhere.)

b

 

[bhaisahab]

How big? ;-)



b

Medium-sized. (their fingers need to be big enough to type with, but the bigger monkeys tend to consume too many peanuts).;-)
Edit: There is a media baron, a certain Mr M, who I believe works on the same principle when employing "journalists".

 

[riquecohen]

I couldn't find any definite distinction between the two and I see it's not obvious to NESs either. It might well be that it's a matter of collocates. MacMillan and Oxford seem to support what bhai said, that middle-sized is more common in AmE:
Oxford-midsize, MacMillan-middle-sized

Middle-sized can also be shortened to (acc. to those dictionaries): mid-sized, midsized, midsize.

I do not believe that bhaisahab said that middle-sized is more common in AmE; it is not. I have usually heard both medium-sized and mid-sized, but middle-sized only in the context that BobK suggests.

 

[bhaisahab]

I do not believe that bhaisahab said that middle-sized is more common in AmE; it is not. I have usually heard both medium-sized and mid-sized, but middle-sized only in the context that BobK suggests.

I didn't say that middle-sized is more common in AmE. I said, "I think in BrE it's much more common to say "medium-sized".

 

[nyota]

Oops. Apologies, a faulty assumption.

Having seen midsize/midsized marked in the dictionary as chiefly North American, I extended it over middle-sized and then over what bhai said, and I ended up with:

'* I think in BrE it's much more common to say medium-sized '(much more common than in AmE),'' while what he was saying was,
'I think in BrE it's much more common to say medium-sized' (rather than middle-sized).

 

[birdeen's call]

Unfortunately ESL is commercial and largely unregulated. Get monkeys to write tests, pay them peanuts, make more money.

They will almost surely produce a fine test eventually.