The general statement &quot;they mean something different&quot; is a pronouncement on language as a broad concept. The OED and Merriam Webster are about as authoritative an answer as you can get on that in English, which for the sake of HN, will have to do for now. That&#x27;s not to say one day the differences won&#x27;t evolve (linguistically) into fairly concrete and well-understood distinctions across all languages, but we&#x27;re definitely not there yet.