What's the difference between foolishness and irresponsibility?

Foolishness


Definition:

  • (n.) The quality of being foolish.
  • (n.) A foolish practice; an absurdity.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) So, logic would dictate that if Greeks are genuinely in favour of reform – and opinion polls have consistently shown wide support for many of the structural changes needed – they would be foolish to give these two parties another chance.
  • (2) It would be foolish to bet that Saudi Arabia will exist in its current form a generation from now.” Memories of how the Saudis and Opec deliberately triggered an economic crisis in the west in retaliation for US aid to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war still rankle.
  • (3) That's foolish, because Real Madrid rarely look more uncomfortable than at set pieces.
  • (4) "We regret that Congress was forced to waste its time voting on a foolish bill that was premised entirely on false claims and ignorance," David Jenkins, an REP official, said in a statement.
  • (5) Shorten said while Hicks was “foolish to get caught up in the Afghanistan conflict” the court decision showed an injustice.
  • (6) Many commentators considered the suggestion merely foolish, but computer hackers issued death threats against her and her children, which she promptly posted on Twitter, along with the defiant message: "Get stuffed, losers.
  • (7) And it means that if Labour were to win, Mr Brown would be very foolish, indeed downright wrong, to move Mr Darling.
  • (8) "It was a certain kind of titillation the shop offered," the critic Matthew Collings has written, "sexual but also hopeless, destructive, foolish, funny, sad."
  • (9) Describing the moment McKellen knocked on his dressing room door he said: “I ushered him in nervously, expecting notes for my poor performance or indiscipline – I was a foolish, naughty young actor.
  • (10) But what people did when they were young and foolish, or even when they were not yet public figures, is not always the same.
  • (11) While we have this, it would be foolish to pursue a policy of still constraining resources in the acute sector.
  • (12) All three echoed remarks made recently by the Bank’s governor, Mark Carney, who said it would be “foolish” to cut rates in response to a temporary fall in inflation.
  • (13) Since the initially peaceful demonstrations against his regime began more than three years ago, he has proved himself, by turns, foolish, craven and vicious.
  • (14) In a high-risk, 65-minute speech in Manchester delivered without notes, and 20 minutes longer than he intended, Miliband tried to take the mantle of the 19th-century Tory prime minister Benjamin Disraeli's one nation, pointedly grabbing the territory and language of the centre ground which he believes David Cameron has foolishly vacated.
  • (15) But one backbencher, West Australian Liberal Dennis Jensen , has said it is foolish to set up a $20bn medical research fund at the same time as the government is cutting money from scientific agencies, including the CSIRO and the Australian Research Council.
  • (16) Donald Trump is too weak, too foolish and too chaotic to see beyond the immediate crises he has created.
  • (17) Here, too, Capote displayed uncanny journalistic skills, capturing even the most languid and enigmatic of subjects – Brando in his pomp – and eliciting the kinds of confidences that left the actor reflecting ruefully on his "unutterable foolishness".
  • (18) They privately acknowledge they were foolish in taking the bait, but argue they have broken no rules since they were offered no jobs, and therefore have no commercial interests to declare in the MPs' register.
  • (19) "Hopefully, the lesson is to stop this foolish childishness," McCain said Thursday on CNN.
  • (20) The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes.” As for the social conditions that obtain: “It is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to, and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish.” Looking back on my political activism of the 1970s and 80s, there was a lot of refusing to accept existing conditions on the basis that they were “wrong and foolish”.

Irresponsibility


Definition:

  • (n.) Want of, or freedom from, responsibility or accountability.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) When he was prime minister Tony Blair asked Peter Mandelson to tell the Prince of Wales to stop his "unhelpful" attempts to influence policy on GM and Mandelson accused him of being "anti-scientific and irresponsible".
  • (2) In this investigation, reanalysis of responses to case vignettes obtained from 436 psychologists, psychiatrists, and internists revealed that on the issue of confidentiality management, these health care providers discriminate among cases involving: Premeditated harm to others, socially irresponsible acts with possible dire consequences to self or others, and minor theft.
  • (3) Resisting dictatorships is more worthwhile than accepting them and thinking things will change by themselves.” Asked if the suffering for a majority of South Sudanese citizens could be stopped if Machar and his colleagues gave up the fight, the rebel leader says “giving up would be irresponsible” and that “history would not forgive him” for it.
  • (4) A senior Conservative cabinet minister has issued a warning to leaders "of all political parties" that putting Britain's membership of the European Union at risk would be "complete folly" and that the "irresponsible" debate taking place is damaging the country's influence at the negotiating table.
  • (5) Corbyn to complain to MoD about army chief's ‘political interference’ Read more Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn’s political mis-steps over the past 10 days have allowed his views to be dismissed as flaky and irresponsible – even where he is right, as in his warnings about kneejerk responses to terrorist attacks and, indeed, in his Armistice Day strictures about the requirement for the top brass to stay out of politics .
  • (6) It established a pattern that would hold for the next five years: to call the effort irresponsible, but then – sometimes after giving an actual veto – to sign the bill rather than inviting the obvious attacks that he was holding US troops hostage to his Guantánamo closure pledge.
  • (7) The people who do somehow want to suggest that the science is in doubt are profoundly irresponsible."
  • (8) However, Henry Ashworth, chief executive of the industry-funded Portman Group, denied drink ads are irresponsible.
  • (9) Webb agreed, calling Miliband "irresponsible" for "stirring up cheap headlines", sneering: "Why doesn't the government set a price cap on a tin of beans?"
  • (10) "Such articles are not only provocative but also highly irresponsible as they undermine Greece's efforts and those of the eurozone and serve only the interests of speculators," the statement said.
  • (11) She also hit out at “scaremongering” by media commentators in the wake of the attack, insisting that it was “very irresponsible” to whip up “mass hysteria” about the dangers of the internet.
  • (12) Navalny announced he was moving the rally to Tverskaya Street, saying: “Compromise is possible, but not humiliation.” Some in the protest movement welcomed the decision as the only logical response to the obstacles imposed by the authorities, but others decried it as irresponsible because it put protesters at risk.
  • (13) But at the same time we were supporting the industry and talking it up, which it deserves, some of our competitors were talking it down in their own products … that’s just crazy and a lack of leadership that frankly is irresponsible and it’s got to stop.” In a rare public appearance to mark the Australian newspaper’s 50th anniversary, Mitchell said the broadsheet newspaper was worth $50m in “cover price revenue” alone and it was too soon to walk away from print.
  • (14) Mr Olie apologised to customers, and denied that the special offers were irresponsible.
  • (15) I sought a treaty that would work for the people of African countries like South Sudan, as their newly born nation struggles to establish itself while still in conflict over borders with their northern neighbours – a conflict fuelled by irresponsible sales of deadly weapons.
  • (16) It doesn't just allow people to act irresponsibly, but often actively encourages them to do so.
  • (17) It is a bit rich to expect us to state exactly how we’ll whip our troops when Cameron himself still can’t come out and say what he’ll do with his own cabinet.” Behind the scenes, “sources close to Corbyn” could usefully soothe pro-European nerves: “As an internationalist party, our inclination is of course to remain within the European family, but it would be irresponsible to declare our hand now, leaving Cameron to barter away British employment rights.” However Corbyn votes himself, it is perfectly plain that he will not have the authority to whip individual Euro-enthusiast MPs to vote against their consciences, so he may as well concede that at once.
  • (18) The prime minister we hired to take decisions on our behalf has passed the buck back to us for tactical party reasons and resigned when he didn’t like our answer, David Cameron outdoing even Ed Miliband’s resignation for irresponsibility.
  • (19) At the same time, don’t we want our pop stars to at least flirt with irresponsibility?
  • (20) Many on the Right still view it as the epitome of all that was irresponsible, idiotic and dangerous about the Sixties, while many on the terminally fractured Left still mourn 1968 as the last great moment of revolutionary possibility.

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