A Deception is not una Decepción

"Ready to deceive my next victim. Will I ever be deceived myself?"

Well, here is another example of a false cognate or, as they also call them, a False Friend. Deception has no connection with DECEPCIÓN as we understand it in Spanish. For us, that means Disappointment, but in English, it means something else entirely. 
The word Deception comes from the verb Deceive which means to confuse by giving a false appearance or statement. A deception then is something else and not what you see; therefore in English, you don't "have deceptions" or "suffer deceptions", which are common expressions in Spanish. You are just DECEIVED. 
It has been said that human beings are deceivers by nature. If that is correct then you and I are deceivers. Do you think this is true?

Comments

Racionalista said…
Interesting! there exist some cases at english where words with similar soung or even quite equal have different meanings. So as I understand Decception is like the action of hypocresy where people dont act and say what they think but instead what a hiden interest tell them, so being decieved sound like being faked by an Hypocrite person . What is the equaL for decepciòn?
August 8, 2012 at 9:34 AM
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