Last week, we looked at the difference between late, belated, and lately . However, one important difference that remains to be examined is that between be late and be delayed . We use both of these words to talk about “delays,” but they almost always have a different connotation.
First of all, let’s look at the word delay . Delay can be both a verb and a noun. As a noun, it means not only “delay” but also “delay”, “delay”.
1 – Delay as “delay”:
We should arrive at ten
o’clock , as long as there are no unexpected delays .
There has been a delay in the book’s publication.
Any
further delay would threaten the entire project .
Highway construction causes big delays during rush hour .
2 – Delay as “delay”, “delonga”:
You need to
call back without delay .
There was a long delay , as usual.
I’m
sorry for the delay in answering you .
Predictably, delay as a verb means both “to delay” and “to take a long time.” It also means “to postpone,” as in “to postpone .” Let’s look at some examples. Hang in there!
3 – Delay how to delay:
I was delayed by traffic.
I was delayed because of traffic.
(Or I was delayed because of traffic.)
My
plane was delayed by an hour.
This
decision may delay the process of European unification.
4 – Delay as “to delay”:
If
you delay now , the opportunity might be lost .
This offer ends soon, so do n’t delay .
I would n’t delay
renewing your passport , if I were you .
As you can see, we have come to the main difference between to be delayed and to be late : delayed has other possible meanings – “postponed” and “delayed”.
But that’s not all. Even in the sense of “to be late,” delayed tends to be used in the passive voice, denoting some external circumstance. So when I say I was delayed , the impression it gives is quite different from saying I’m late .
You can arrive late to a place and say: I’m sorry I’m late . In this case, you’re simply apologizing for being late. But you can also say: I’m sorry I’m late . I was delayed . The literal translation of this sounds funny: “Sorry for being late. I was late.” It sounds like pure repetition, but in fact with I was delayed you’re actually offering an excuse: something happened that was (probably) beyond your control.
Finally, to say that something (and not a person) is late – for example, an event – we always use delayed , not late .
Let’s recap with some examples:
1 – To be late :
He ‘ s never late for work .
Please do n’t be late for the meeting tomorrow.
He
arrived late to the airport and missed his flight .
2 – To be delayed:
He
was delayed by the heavy traffic and arrived late to work .
Why is the meeting delayed ?
He arrived late to the airport, but to his relief found he was still on time –
his flight had been delayed .
This post ended up being a bit too long, but I hope it helped you understand how to use to be late and to be delayed . Now write down some of the example sentences in Anki and let us know in the comments if you have any suggestions or observations.