To be able to tell

To be able to tell

Today’s expression is to be able to tell. You can tell; I can tell. Have you heard that before? Usually “tell” means to talk to someone and to pass along information. Tell me your name. Tell me what time you’d like to meet for dinner. I’ll tell you all about my day at the dinner table. Like that.

But there is another quirky way of using “tell” and it has a totally different meaning. It’s almost always used with the verb, “to be able to”, or the variations of “can,” like can, can’t, could, couldn’t. And it means to notice or to identify by looking at something.

Here’s how you heard it earlier. I was describing a brownstone, a classic style of house in Brooklyn. And a brownstone is brown, yes, but lots of houses are brown in color without being a brownstone. So how can you tell if a house is a brownstone? How do you know by looking that it’s a brownstone? You can tell that a building is a brownstone because it’s three stories, has a stoop in front, and bay windows, and shares a wall with the houses on either side. That’s how you can tell if a building is a brownstone. That’s how you can identify it.

Let’s say you’re with your spouse at a table in a restaurant and you’re waiting for another couple to join you for dinner. Far across the crowded restaurant, you see two people walk in. You ask your spouse, “Hey, is that our friends?” Your spouse looks closely, squints, and says, “I can’t tell from here.” In this case, “I can’t tell” means, I can’t determine if it’s true; I can’t see. Maybe the distance is too great; maybe there are too many people in the way. For one reason or another, you can’t say for sure if it’s your friends. You can’t tell.

Now let’s say, dinner is over and your two friends are gone. You’re with your spouse at home talking about the evening. You might say, “Both of them seem to have lost weight lately. You can really tell that they’ve been exercising.”

“You can tell that they’ve been exercising,” means that a person would notice that they’ve been exercising: they appear slimmer; their clothes fit better, whatever the signals. “You can tell” means that a person, in general, would notice.

You can really tell that this neighborhood is changing. That means, “it’s clear to an observer that this neighborhood is changing.” And it’s true of where I live. When I moved here four years ago, there were some cheap stores and ethnic restaurants, but nothing really premium. But now, an upscale cocktail bar, a fancy doughnut shop, and a fancy coffee shop by the train station have all opened in the last year. You can really tell that the neighborhood is changing; you would notice it by looking.

I sometimes can’t tell if my client is happy with my work or not. In this case, it’s not about looking; it’s just about noticing or being aware. Some people, you can clearly tell if they’re happy or not: they wear their emotions on their sleeve, we sometimes say. If they’re happy, you know it; if they’re unhappy, well, you know that, too. But not everyone is like that. With some people, it can be difficult to tell if they’re happy, sad, upset, angry—they don’t always show their emotions. It can be tough to tell what they’re thinking or feeling.

Quote of the week

Here’s a good quote for you this week by the English writer Ernest Hemingway: “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

This was a long episode, so we’re going to wrap things up here. Thanks for being with us and remember that we’ll be back on Thursday for another episode of Plain English.

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