word-choiceword-usage
— Shall we go for a vacation?
— Let's __ a time for it.
A. make B. find C. get D. fix
I narrow the answers down to "make" or "find", and I prefer "find", but there is "make an appointment". What do you think?
I also wonder if "time" can be used as a countable noun? I thought it was always uncountable. I would have said "let's find some time for it" instead. What would you think?
Thank!
You can use both medicine and pill and both can mean that you are taking legitimate therapy. However, sometimes these terms are interchangeable, and sometimes not.
small, round, solid pharmaceutical oral dosage form of medication that was in use before the advent of tablets and capsules. Pills were made by mixing the active ingredients with an excipient such as glucose syrup in a mortar and pestle to form a paste, then rolling the mass into a long cylindrical shape (called a "pipe"), and dividing it into equal portions, which were then rolled into balls, and often coated with sugar to make them more palatable. (Wikipedia)
Today a pill refers to all oral solid dosage forms that are intended to be swallowed as such (note that an effervescent tablet for example, most likely won't be referred to as a pill).
The pill or capitalized The Pill (definition 2) refers specifically to birth control pills (i.e. oral contraceptives).
In everyday (colloquial) usage to use the term pill meaning medicine taken orally in a solid dosage form is fine, but as a technical term it would be incorrect (unless of course you are making an exhibition about the history of pharmacy).
You might need to take a syrup, an injection (insulin e.g.), use an inhaler etc. In this case pill doesn't work and you have to use the term medicine or use the term for a specific dosage form.
To take a medicine is used less often than to take a pill. But that doesn't mean that the word medicine is used less common in this sense than the word pill. Medicine is more often used in different constructions:
You need to take this medicine three times a day; this one you need to take twice a day.
Take the medicine
Take + personal pronoun + medicine:
Make sure that the children take their medicine.
or
Kanga replied, “Roo, dear, you must take your medicine" [...]
“I liked it better when Tigger ate my medicine for me,” said Roo. (House at Pooh Corner, by A. A. Milne)
The word medicine can be both countable and uncountable, according to LDOCE.
This Google Ngram shows that in fact, medicine (green) is used more often than pill (bright blue and dark red) except when they are used with the indefinite article:
A side note: medicines can also be administered and (especially for topical medicines) applied. (See more in this post. You definitely don't eat a medicine, but this doesn't apply to Tiggers, because "that's what they like best".
Any of those sentences could be used and seem completely natural in different contexts. You choose each among those expressions based on what you want to communicate.
Are you talking about one chair or many chairs? That (obviously) determines whether you choose the plural or not. If I asked about multiple spoons, but you answered me with a singular response, it would seem odd. For example, if I said "Would you get me two spoons from the drawer please?" and you responded "There's no spoon here." If I ask about a singular and you responded with a plural it wouldn't be as odd. If I say "Go tell Joe he has a phone call." you could say "There are no Joes in this room - I don't know who you're talking about." even though it's more likely you would say "Joe isn't here."
Are you talking about one specific chair or just any chair? That determines whether you say "there is no chair" or "there isn't a chair". This can be tricky because it really depends on what is in your mind when you say it, and not necessarily anything that has been said earlier. I could say "When you get there, sit in the chair." and if there are only couches when you get there, you might tell me "There is no chair here." (the specific chair that you were going to sit in isn't there) or "There aren't any chairs here" (you looked for any chair to sit in and there were none available).
In the movie the Matrix, there is a scene where a boy is bending a spoon with his mind and he says that to do that first you must realize there is no spoon. He is speaking about a specific spoon. If I asked you to get me a spoon from a drawer that had no spoons in it, you could say "there isn't a spoon in here (for me to give you)." or "There aren't any spoons in here, just forks." or "There's no spoon in here (the specific spoon you want isn't here)." All of those statements are fine and sound natural.
Best Answer
finding a time implies that unallocated time was available and it just needed to be identified and allocated for your purpose.
making a time implies that a deliberate decision was made to do something instead of other things. That is, you made the time available by actively forgoing something else.