Learn English – Would you tell me the difference between object and objective as a noun

conundrummeaningsynonymsword-choice

I am very confused. Could you possibly elaborate (in detail) the reason why:

My object is to improve my English as much as possible. [WRONG it should be 'objective']

My object is to learn English. [RIGHT]

The object of the game is to improve children's math skill. [RIGHT]

So, why has Longman written the following:

! Do not use object to mean 'the thing you are working towards and hope to achieve'. Use objective: We have not yet achieved our objective (NOT our object).

Is Longman here wrong?

All of the expressions and examples which I have provided are extracted from Longman (see link below) and Common Errors from Longman too.

http://www.ldoceonline.com/Grammar-topic/object_1

Best Answer

If Longman says "Do not use object to mean 'the thing you are working towards and hope to achieve" and provided "My object is to learn English" as an example, then it is contradicting itself. As for the object-objective distinction, I can only offer an opinion:

  1. Objective can be used in any situation where object can be used, i.e. "what's the objet of the game" → "what's the objective of the game"
  2. Object can only be used to describe the main goal of something. For this reason, you can say "the object of my visit is to return your book" or "the object of the game is to pick up the most sticks" but not "my object is to learn English" because in the first two, you are describing the central goal of the visit or game, while in the third, you are only describing one of your many goals.
Related Topic