I’m sorry if this seems dumb. I tend to take things literally and “mutual” and “exclusive” seem to be antonyms but mutually exclusive is a term used a lot and it confuses the crap out of me. I’m a native English speaker also.
Does it mean that the two things CAN exist together? I feel like my brain does gymnastics trying to understand the term; I’m not a dumb person but this term just totally eludes me!
Please don’t attack me, just trying to not feel stupid.
In: 49
You just have to break it down into the correct definitions instead of going into it with your preconceived notions on what these words mean.
Mutual means “Have in common”
Exclusive means “To keep out, to prevent”
So if you say you are the age of 20 you can’t also be the age of 21 as they are mutually exclusive.
That is to say the age 20 is not equal to 21
What they both have in common is that they both prevent the other from being true.
If you were on lunch and two people invited you. One person is eating outside. One person is eating inside. You are given a mutually exclusive option.
What both options have is common is eating outside prevents you from eating inside and eating inside prevents you from eating outside.
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