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
“Mutually exclusive” means that picking A would exclude B, *and also* picking B would exclude A.
There are two cookies. You can pick one and I’ll take the other. If you take the chocolate chip cookie, then you have excluded the cinnamon cookie because I’m going to take it. But also, if you take the cinnamon cookie then you have excluded the chocolate chip…because I’m going to take it. There is no option where you get both, because no matter what you pick, you exclude something – the choices are mutually exclusive.
A choice between “eat the cookie” or “save it for later” is not *mutually* exclusive because picking “eat the cookie” excludes any option to save it for later…but picking “save it for later” does *not* exclude the possibility of “eat the cookie” because you can still eat it later.
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