本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Indeed, it is not easy for us to command the usages of the following words: refuse, reject, decline, and refute.

Hopefully, the following short sentences are OK.

1) The spokesman refused to comment on the incident in detail.
2) He refused to sign on the paper.


3) Our proposal has been rejected.
4) I cannot reject his friendship.


5) I decided to decline the Nortel offer because I have already joined a consulting company. (By the way, you had better not decline any offer. If you have more, you may spare some for me.)


6) His appeal has been refuted.

By the way, there is a verbial phrase that extends similar meaning: turn down.

It seems we can say the following sentence:


7) I have been turned down by IBM Canada.


But if I fail in obtaining an offer from Miscrosoft, I would like to tell you I have been pissed off by Microsoft. "pissed off" sounds a little bit rude, so we cannot use it in the formal context.

I hope you won't shout at me: Jabber, what a pity!更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net