List other examples in your life where use and abuse are not often distinguished?

Question

1. A city councel banning skateboarding.

1 A. reckless skateboarding.

2. A person advocating a certain technology being banned

2 A. The abuse of a technology for personal gain or pleasure in an illegal manner.


This is my 13 year old son's homework... verbatum.

Personally, I don't get it...

He want's to be included...

help him out...

Thanks!

Answer 1

Err, the books could do with an edit! I can understand your frustration at it, so I'll make what I can of it. I am guessing 1AA and 2AA describe 2 different situations and 2 views on it. In 1AA for example you could imagine youngsters skating at a busy square in the centre of town. One could find this reckless, another could find it the best place for them to have fun. ie: one may think it's abusing the square, another thinks it's using the square, and it's hard to see which is the truth.
In the second example the underlying situation may be someone using the latest in infrared communications to hack into certain security systems, disable road cameras and annoy people by zapping on their tellies. One could say this infrared technology should be banned, while another finds it USEful and only wants the negative effect of it banned. Again, it's tough to distinguish what's abuse or use, wrong or right.

I don't think anyone would mind if your son would try to word his answer a bit less vaguely. Think of a controversial thing that happened in your town, and on whether you can with a bit of imagination call it use, and with equal imagination you could call it abuse. If you cannot think of an example, I'll oblige..

In Edinburgh, people take offense in cyclists often using the sidewalks and bus lanes, where they should stick to either the road or designated cycling lanes. Are these cyclists abusing the roads, or could it be that using roads is dangerous, cycle paths are too limited, and it is actually useful (less dangerous for any party involved) to move onto pedestrian pathways and relatively more quiet buslanes? Without commenting much on a matter like this, it's easy to see abuse and use find themselves in a grey area.

--

I'm very sorry to have answered so late. If you need further help and found this useful, feel free to mail me directly through this or another site the next time.

Answer 2

tanning?