✅  Tool is the general word for any kind of handheld object that helps you do things, especially physical or manual labor (garden tool; kitchen tool).

✅  A utensil is a kind of tool, typically one used to prepare or eat food (kitchen utensil). The word utensil, however, does not necessarily refer to all tools. For example, you wouldn’t say garden utensil without getting a few odd looks!

✅  Additionally, tool can be used figuratively to refer to anything, including people, that is being used by someone in a position of power to exercise that power (The prime minister was a tool of the king).

By now you should have all the tools you need to appreciate these synonyms for utensil.

✅ Conduct means to lead someone to a destination (I conducted the duke to his room).

✅ Direct means to give someone instructions, rather than guide them yourself (I directed the truck driver to the right house).

✅ Direct and conduct can both also mean manage. Direct can mean to manage or supervise a company, estate, or similar. Conduct can describe the way that you manage yourself or your behavior (She conducts herself well; she directs the estate’s affairs).

✅ Conduct can imply formality or ceremony, while direct is less formal, but implies giving helpful or detailed advice that is equivalent to you being there.

Try using Grammar Coach to write a paragraph to direct someone to a location.

✅  Technically, both since and because mean the same thing. However, they imply a different kind of causality.

✅  Because suggests a reason for something happening (I ate the birthday cake because I was hungry), implying that something is a direct consequence of something else.

✅  Since shows a circumstantial connection between something and its consequence (Since I was hungry, I ate). Since implies a slightly weaker link, where the focus is on the main statement rather than the reason for that statement happening (Since it was late, I decided not to go).

✅  Since and because along with their synonym as are often used interchangeably in academic writing. In this context, since and as can sound more formal than because.

Since you’re here to learn, you might as well check out these synonyms for because!