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unlimited / limitless?

4 replies
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Is there any difference between unlimited and limitless?

Which one would you use in this sentence: Wind power could offer us a/an ..... supply of energy.
Full Member233
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I see no difference here, CP. I suppose there may be collocations in which one or the other is preferred. Traffic speed is unlimited on this stretch of expressway. The reaches of space are limitless.
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I wonder whether we could say that "unlimited" implies that X could be limited, by some agency or other; whereas "limitless" simply implies "without limits".

So your mobile phone provider may offer "unlimited talk time at weekends", for instance, because it has the power to restrict talk time; whereas my Internet provider offers "unlimited incompetence", because its burbling operatives are wholly incapable of providing a decent service.

(Especially on its "live help" feature, I might add.)

MrP
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Wouldn't you mean "limitless incompetence"? (I know the case...)
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Oops. Thank you! Correction:

"...whereas my Internet provider offers "limitless incompetence", because its burbling operatives are wholly incapable of providing a decent service."

It bears repeating, I find.

MrP
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