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What's the difference between "inquiry" and "enquiry"?
inquiry and enquiry,
same pronounciation, similar meaning. How to distinguish them?
Oct 27, 2014 3:55 PM
Answers · 2
2
Same pronunciation, same meaning.
They are the same word, in effect. British English uses both spellings, American English tends to prefer 'inquiry'.
October 27, 2014
1
Either spelling can be used, but many people prefer enquire and enquiry for the general sense of “ask”, and inquire and inquiry for a formal investigation:
I enquired where he was from
The first enquiry in my inbox today was about when we open.
We are going to inquire into the incident as the police did not treat us fairly.
The lawyers asked when the inquiry will be completed.
In practice, enquire and enquiry are more common and are used for everything in British English although we have started using Inquiry here for formal things.
In the USA its Inquiry for everything.
Interestingly my spell checker does not recognise "enquire" or "enquiry" at all.
October 27, 2014
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Zoe_traduction
Language Skills
Chinese (Mandarin), English, French
Learning Language
English
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