lose touch or lose contact?

English
Solved

there's a sentence in a tasksheet: "The harbour master lost contact / touch with the ship." the key says the solution is 'touch'.

can anyone tell me the difference between lose touch and lose contact? lose contact only refers to people, and lose touch refers to both people and objects? thanks for the answer in advance.

8 Answers

2votes

Astheart 2940

The Oxford Dictionary doesn't know the idiom of "lose contact". The idiom of "lose touch with somebody/something" is correct.

1vote

Petros Kazakidis 200

We can lose contact when on the phone.

1vote

ahenus 11540

i have done some more research on "lose contact with SY" and found these:

http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-cobuild/lose%20contact%20(with%20sb)

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/lose+contact+with

longman also recognizes this expression: http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/contact_1

thanks for the help, now i can see that you can only lose contact with SY but lose touch is good for both SG and SY.

commented

Well, you're right. It can be found in the dictionaries given by you. But The free dictionary reads: lose contact with someone or something. So, both as well; it's even wider than you say. But, the question always is how reliable the dictionary is.

commented

i try to think of english as an always changing language thus sticking to oxford, longman and merriam-webster have never been enough for me. urban-, free- and other dictionaries might be regarded less credible but they have helped me learn a lot over the years thus i personally find them useful. anyways, thanks for the insight. i can imagine lose contact with SG in the sentence such as "we lost contact with the ship because of the storm". it all depends on the context then.

0vote

Mirova Elena 290

I think 'lose touch' is correct.

0vote

Salis 140

what the different? lost touch .. lost contact..

0vote

tiffy 7370

both lose contact or lose touch are correct - they mean the same

0vote

Find out what you need to improve in yourself to become more effective!

0vote

Awesome blog you have here but I was curious if you knew of any discussion boards that cover the same topics discussed in this article? I’d really like to be a part of community where I can get responses from other knowledgeable people that share the same interest. If you have any recommendations, please let me know. Thanks a lot!

lose touch or lose contact?