{"id":10234,"date":"2021-01-08T21:30:35","date_gmt":"2021-01-08T21:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/?p=10234"},"modified":"2022-09-18T16:04:29","modified_gmt":"2022-09-18T16:04:29","slug":"ambivalent-in-a-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/ambivalent-in-a-sentence\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Use &#8220;ambivalent&#8221; in a Sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>img#mv-trellis-img-1::before{padding-top:150%; }img#mv-trellis-img-1{display:block;}<\/style><p>Some English words have a notorious history of being misused.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, people commonly confuse homophones like &ldquo;accept and except,&rdquo; &ldquo;affect and effect,&rdquo; and &ldquo; principal and principle.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, a pair of words could be confusing because they have similar or related meanings, which is the case with &ldquo;imply and infer,&rdquo; &ldquo;historic and historical,&rdquo; and &ldquo;empathy and sympathy.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>However, some words might get misused because people aren&rsquo;t clear on their meanings in the first place. A case in point of this last category is the word &ldquo;ambivalent.&rdquo;<br>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>How to use &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo; in a sentence?<\/h2>\n<p><strong>&ldquo;Ambivalent&rdquo; is an adjective, and it means possessing two opposite feelings about something simultaneously, causing you to feel uncertain about your final position. So, you use it whenever you want to describe a feeling or position of being pulled in two different and opposite directions.<\/strong><br>\n<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>A closer look at how to use &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo;<\/h2>\n<p>To see it in action, let&rsquo;s say someone asked you about a referendum, and you have mixed feelings about the subject. For one, you think that the referendum is much needed and that it has the potential to do some good.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, you also feel that it comes at a bad time and might cause more chaos than order. Ergo, you have both positive and negative emotions, making you ambivalent about the topic.<\/p>\n<p><i><div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">\n<p><i><strong>Friend #1:<\/strong> So, what do you think about the referendum? <\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><strong>Friend #2:<\/strong> I don&rsquo;t know. I guess I&rsquo;m ambivalent about it.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><\/i><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/i><\/p>\n<p>Since ambivalent is an adjective that describes having opposing views, it is usually reserved for sentient objects. For example, you can&rsquo;t say that the table was &ldquo;ambivalent.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>That wouldn&rsquo;t make any sense. Also, animals and plants can&rsquo;t be ambivalent.<\/p>\n<p>However, relationships and attitudes can be ambivalent as these reflect sentient feelings.<\/p>\n<p><i><div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">The woman expressed ambivalent feelings towards the suspect. She sympathized with him but still felt that he deserved punishment.<\/div><\/div><\/i><\/p>\n<p>Even results and responses can be ambivalent. After all, results, responses, and messages all reflect the attitude of the person delivering them.<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">When I asked him whether he would like to pursue his graduate studies, he gave me a very ambivalent response.<\/div><\/div>\n&nbsp;\n<h2>Where does the word &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo; come from?<\/h2>\n<p>The word &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo; came to the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/appositive-phrases\/\">English language<\/a><\/strong> around the early twentieth century.<\/p>\n<p>It was first introduced to us via the field of psychology when the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler used the term &ldquo;Ambivalenz&rdquo; in his book &ldquo;Zur Theorie des schizophrenen Negativismus.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>After that, &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo; made its way to the international scientific vocabulary, which represented a set of words used by scientists from different parts of the globe.<\/p>\n<p>Now, if we take a close look at the word &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo; itself, we will notice that it is composed of two parts. The first part, the prefix &ldquo;ambi-,&rdquo; means both, and it comes from <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/untranslatable-german-words\/\">German<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Then, the second part, &ldquo;-valent,&rdquo; comes from the Latin <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/transitive-verbs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">verb<\/a><\/strong> &ldquo;valere,&rdquo; which means &ldquo;to be strong&rdquo; or &ldquo;to be of worth.&rdquo; This is why the word &ldquo;equivalent&rdquo; means of equal power or equal strength.<\/p>\n<p>Hence, when you put the two together, &ldquo;ambi-&rdquo; and &ldquo;-valent,&rdquo; you get a word that means having strong opinions or attitudes on both sides of an issue.<\/p>\n<p><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10241\" src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin.jpg\" alt=\"How To Use Ambivalent in a Sentence Pin\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1500\" data-pin-description=\"How To Use Ambivalent in a Sentence \" data-pin-title=\"How To Use Ambivalent in a Sentence\" srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin.jpg 320w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-735x1103.jpg 735w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-223x335.jpg 223w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-231x347.jpg 231w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-347x520.jpg 347w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-427x640.jpg 427w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-512x768.jpg 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin.jpg\"><\/noscript><img loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10241 eager-load\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201000%201500'%3E%3Crect%20width='1000'%20height='1500'%20style='fill:%23e3e3e3'\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" alt=\"How To Use Ambivalent in a Sentence Pin\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1500\" data-pin-description=\"How To Use Ambivalent in a Sentence \" data-pin-title=\"How To Use Ambivalent in a Sentence\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin.jpg\" id=\"mv-trellis-img-1\" data-src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin.jpg\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin.jpg 320w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-735x1103.jpg 735w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-223x335.jpg 223w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-231x347.jpg 231w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-347x520.jpg 347w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-427x640.jpg 427w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/How-To-Use-Ambivalent_in-a-Sentence-Pin-512x768.jpg 512w\" data-svg=\"1\" data-trellis-processed=\"1\"><br>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Other forms of &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo;<\/h2>\n<p>While &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo; is an adjective, it is worth looking at different forms.<\/p>\n<h3>&nbsp;<\/h3>\n<h3>&rdquo;Ambivalence&rdquo;<\/h3>\n<p>The noun form of &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo; is &ldquo;ambivalence.&rdquo; It is the state of having two contradicting opinions or feelings simultaneously.<\/p>\n<p><i><br>\nEven though he would have made an excellent professor, his ambivalence towards the faculty made him wait too long till the position was filled by someone else.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><br>\nThe report&rsquo;s ambivalence made it difficult for the committee to take any binding actions.<\/i><br>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>&rdquo;Ambivalently&rdquo;<\/h3>\n<p>The adverb form of &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo; is &ldquo;ambivalently.&rdquo; It means to do something while displaying mixed feelings about the matter.<\/p>\n<p><i><br>\nShe spoke ambivalently about her time as a lawyer.<\/i><\/p>\n<h2>&nbsp;<\/h2>\n<h2>Why do people confuse the word &ldquo;ambivalent?&rdquo;<\/h2>\n<p>There are a few reasons that can explain why people confuse this word. First of all, its meaning is a bit nuanced, and some people conflate its meaning with a more simplistic word like &ldquo;indifferent.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Secondly, &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo; sounds similar to &ldquo;ambiguous,&rdquo; and their meanings are distantly related, so it can be appreciated why people get confused there as well.<br>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>&rdquo;Ambivalent&rdquo; vs &ldquo;indifferent&rdquo;<\/h3>\n<p>&ldquo;Indifferent&rdquo; is not the same as &ldquo;ambivalent.&rdquo; While &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo; means having two opposing views, &ldquo;indifferent&rdquo; means being disinterested in the matter, possibly to the point of having no views about it all.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, when you say that someone was &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo; about something, the implication is that <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/comma-before-regardless\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">regardless<\/a><\/strong> of their mixed and confused feelings, they cared enough to form an opinion in the first place.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/comma-before-or-after-however\/\">However<\/a><\/strong>, when someone is &ldquo;indifferent&rdquo; about something, you are saying that they are apathetic about it.<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">He felt ambivalent about their proposal.<\/div><\/div>\n<p>He had mixed feelings about their proposal. He felt that there were both positives and negatives that balanced each other.<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">He felt indifferent about their proposal.<\/div><\/div>\n<p>He wasn&rsquo;t moved by their proposal and couldn&rsquo;t care less about it.<\/p>\n<h3>&nbsp;<\/h3>\n<h3>&rdquo;Ambivalent&rdquo; and &ldquo;ambiguous&rdquo;<\/h3>\n<p>&ldquo;Ambiguous&rdquo; has the same prefix, &ldquo;ambi-,&rdquo; at the beginning, and this might explain some of the confusion. Yet, &ldquo;ambiguous&rdquo; and &ldquo;ambivalent&rdquo; not only have completely different meanings, but they also have different histories and origins.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Ambiguous&rdquo; made its appearance in English somewhere around the 16th century. And, even though the &ldquo;ambi-&rdquo; prefix in &ldquo;ambiguous&rdquo; suggests a duality of sorts, the concern here is the duality of meaning.<\/p>\n<p>Put differently, &ldquo;ambiguous&rdquo; is used to refer to something that has more than one possible meaning, making it difficult to be certain.<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">He felt that the politician&rsquo;s speech was ambivalent.<\/div><\/div>\n<p>The above example tells us that the subject felt that the speech was both positively and negatively charged.<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">He felt that the politician&rsquo;s speech was ambiguous.<\/div><\/div>\n<p>In the second example, the subject is telling us that the speech was so opaque that he didn&rsquo;t understand it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some English words have a notorious history of being misused. For instance, people commonly confuse homophones like &ldquo;accept and except,&rdquo; &ldquo;affect and effect,&rdquo; and &ldquo; principal and principle.&rdquo; On the other hand, a pair of words could be confusing because they have similar or related meanings, which is the case with &ldquo;imply and infer,&rdquo; &ldquo;historic &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable-in-feed":false,"article-schema-type":"Article","disable-critical-css":false,"_convertkit_action_broadcast_export":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,1116],"tags":[293],"class_list":["post-10234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","category-grammar","tag-ambivalent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10234"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10242,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10234\/revisions\/10242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}