Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word.
He's the greatest _ _ _ _ expert on French art.
A. alive
B. live
C. lively
D. living
E. nowadays

Answer 1

Hint: In linguistics, there are many words which closely resemble each other in their meanings. But they are not exactly the same. These words are synonyms which are thousands in number. One can be baffled by the degree of similarity in these, but they are meant to be used in different contexts. We just have to keep in mind their usage. This will clear all the confusions we have about these synonyms. Similarly, in this question, we can see that some of the words that have been given to us are similar in meanings whereas some are not. We have to understand the meaning and the usage of each word so that we can pick the correct answer from them.

Complete answer:
1. As discussed earlier, there are words used in the English language which are almost the same in meaning. Hence, it becomes quite difficult to differentiate them.
2. In order to distinguish them, one has to study the context where they are used.
3. Both option A, ‘alive’ and option B, ‘live’ are wrong because these words are used as nouns and as verbs respectively.
4. Option C, ‘lively’ is not correct because it does not fit the context.
5. Option D, ‘living' best fits this context. It is an adjective as well as a verb. Here, it acts as an adjective and describes that he (subject) is the greatest expert of French art among all of those who are still living in this world at present.
6. Option E, ‘nowadays’ is an adverb. It is used to describe something as contrary to the past. It can be used for a person, thing or a place. It is not the correct option because it does not complete the meaning of the sentence.

Hence the correct answer is option ‘D’

Note:In this question, we saw the words ‘live’, ‘lively’ and ‘living’ are depicted with similar structure. But their meanings are evidently different. The word ‘alive’ is also an adjective, but the word ‘living’ becomes more apt here which modifies the noun ‘expert’ in the sentence.