Differentiate

政府今日起收緊社交距離措施，表列處所包括的美容院必須停止營業。美容業界希望政府考慮檢視表列處所停業的機制，區別（differentiate）處理長期無確診個案的業界，讓其繼續營業。

動詞differentiate有兩個意思︰「區分」和「使產生差異」，前者指find/show the difference between things，後者指make something different。例如，It can be difficult to differentiate between COVID and flu based on the symptoms.（根據症狀可能難以區分新冠肺炎和流感。）；We need to further enhance the features to differentiate this new model from the previous one.（我們需要進一步增強特色，以將這個新型號與之前的區分開來。）留意組句時，可以用differentiate between something and something，或者differentiate something from something。

將動詞differentiate的字尾轉成-tion，便是名詞differentiation，可以解「區分」，或者「差異化」。例句︰The differentiation between the two products is insignificant.（兩款產品差別不大。）；Product differentiation is essential to branding.（產品差異化對品牌推廣至關重要。）

（本欄逢周三、五刊登）