単語を使うとき好んでする間違い（その4）

Popular mistakes in word usage(part 4)

新人技師：‘various’と‘varying’のように似た単語は私には混乱します．

英文編集者：‘Various’は"Various temperatures for the cell culture were tried, and the optimum temperature for growth among these was identified."というような文章で使われています．‘Various’は‘different’という意味です．もしも，この文章を"varying temperatures"と書けば，培養中に温度を変化させたという意味になります．もちろん実験中に条件を変えることもありますが，しかし，そんなによくあることではなく，いろいろと条件を決めて，その影響をみるやりかたのほうが一般的です．

新人技節：単語はペアで覚えるのが私には楽です．もっとほかにもありませんか？

Junior technologist : I'm confused by some pairs of words that resemble each other,① like 'various' and 'varying'.

English editor : 'Various' is used in sentences like "Various temperatures for the cell culture were tried, and the optimum temperature for growth② among these was identified." 'Various' means 'different'. If you wrote "varying temperatures" in this sentence, you would mean that the temperature was changed (or varied) during the culture. It is possible, of course, to change conditions during an experiment, but this is not so common. It's more common to examine the effects of different fixed conditions.