What's the difference between gaff and guff?

Gaff


Definition:

  • (n.) A barbed spear or a hook with a handle, used by fishermen in securing heavy fish.
  • (n.) The spar upon which the upper edge of a fore-and-aft sail is extended.
  • (n.) Same as Gaffle, 1.
  • (v. t.) To strike with a gaff or barbed spear; to secure by means of a gaff; as, to gaff a salmon.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Dedicate it to the off-the-cuff remark – the gaffe, even – which averts a war.
  • (2) Every time he opened his mouth he created another gaffe," he said.
  • (3) This is, admittedly, a difficult area for David Cameron, who, when questioned by David Letterman on US TV in 2012, was unable to say that Magna Carta simply meant great charter, but perhaps we should overlook this fairly amazing gaffe (for an Oxford-educated prime minister) and encourage him to inaugurate a national movement of political renewal with the charter as the context and inspiration.
  • (4) Mitt Romney's historic gaffe caught on video – published, with great timing, by the left-leaning Mother Jones magazine – in which he said that his campaign was writing off 47% of American voters since they "depended on government" handouts, was committed in an equally significant manner, as he delivered the remarks to a closed group of potential major donors in Florida.
  • (5) There is strikingly little support for the Republican contender whose gaffe-prone visit to Europe in July won him few friends and who regularly turns European welfarism and "entitlement societies" into points of mockery in his campaign speeches.
  • (6) Following controversy over the candidate's comments on the preparedness of London to host the Olympic Games, his aides will be anxious to avoid further gaffes.
  • (7) Democrats are planning to highlight what they see as the Republican party’s unpalatable views on immigration over the weekend, sending “trackers” to monitor the event in search of further gaffes from potential candidates.
  • (8) The comedy, in which she stars as gaffe-prone vice-president Selina Meyer, has been seen as a personal triumph for Louis-Dreyfus, as well as a stateside vindication for the comic method of its creator, Armando Iannucci .
  • (9) Roe worried about “all these gaffes” that Biden made as well as whether the 72-year-old had the necessary energy to serve in the Oval Office.
  • (10) Photograph: Barcroft Media Newsnight's new editor, former Guardian deputy editor Ian Katz, also has form with the comic sidestep after his Twitter "snoring, boring" gaffe about Rachel Reeves.
  • (11) Campaigning before the June election Demirtaş had been full of mischief, needling Erdoğan, making fun of the AKP’s gaffes.
  • (12) Gaffes are a feature of politicians and the electoral process, not a bug.
  • (13) In one high-profile gaffe, the expertise of one member of Macierewicz’s commission was revealed to have been based upon experience of constructing model aircraft, sitting in a fighter jet’s cockpit during an air show, and observing plane wings while looking out of a passenger window.
  • (14) Johnson is the master-builder of that image, deflecting every lie, every gaffe, dishonesty and U-turn with some self-deprecating metaphor: calling his feigned indecision “veering all over the place like a shopping trolley” was worth a world of worthy platitudes.
  • (15) You know, you had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.” Sean Spicer apologizes for 'even Hitler didn't use chemical weapons' gaffe Read more Spicer’s assertion during the Jewish holiday of Passover provoked instant outrage on social media and from some Holocaust memorial groups, who accused him of minimising Hitler’s crimes.
  • (16) This week the rapper said his gaffe at the MTV Video Music awards in 2009 was "bigger ... than the Bush moment".
  • (17) Clinton, while trotting out her plan on college affordability , has been robust in her attacks on Republican candidates of late – speaking out against gaffes on women’s reproductive rights from Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
  • (18) The editor's hope is that there will be "a story", perhaps a new policy initiative but, better still, a "gaffe".
  • (19) If it isn’t frontbench gaffes, it’s the perceived lack of commitment to the armed forces or armed police officers distracting from government blunders.
  • (20) Following a gaffe-strewn visit to Britain , where he queried the Olympic host's fitness to stage the Games, and after stirring controversy in Israel by calling Jerusalem the Israeli capital and seeming to back unilateral Israeli strikes against Iran , the Republican White House contender arrived on Monday in Poland, where he is to deliver a setpiece speech on democracy and freedom.

Guff


Definition:

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Instead, we internalise all the guff telling us that poverty is the inevitable result of an individual’s moral decrepitude.
  • (2) Fiona, by email Well, Fiona, I could, I guess, regale you with the usual guff about pointy-toed flats and midi-length skirts, and all that would be true, to a certain point.
  • (3) If we cannot talk about redistribution, what is the point of this guff on social mobility?
  • (4) Forget all that ministerial guff about the necessity of cutting the public sector to spur economic growth.
  • (5) Frustratingly for Hilton's critics, who like to paint him as a sort of misguided guff engine, the big society has been a resounding, concrete success.
  • (6) At least it trumps its predecessor thanks to the inclusion of the word ‘girt’, which undercuts all the guff about “golden soil” and being “young and free” by virtue of sounding like an Irishman saying ‘girth’.
  • (7) Forget the guff about the need for further environmental investigation (which in any case has already been done) and about which this carelessly non-green government does not give a fig.
  • (8) Nobody, not even Geoff Boycott, cares about such inane guff.
  • (9) In fact, I don't think there's a single product in the entire cosmetics industry that prompts as much guff from advertisers, PRs and shop assistants as moisturisers, and that really is saying something.
  • (10) But the point needs making: the idea that they are run by sports-phobic softies is up there with all the guff talked about immigration, health and safety and the rest.
  • (11) Cody offers a standing rebuke to all the guff being spouted about a dearth of right-wing comedy.
  • (12) Angling, wildlife and heritage groups on Thursday attacked new proposals for a £34bn tidal barrage across the Severn estuary, with one telling MPs that environmental benefits touted by proponents of the barrage are "spin" and "guff".
  • (13) He needs us to believe that commercial management techniques - performance-related pay, new employment contracts and efficiency targets - are what's needed, rather than sentimental guff about public spirit.
  • (14) The resulting disembodiment of their mouth-guff will have an air of the supernatural or even divine.
  • (15) You know it's ruinous guff and adds nothing to the human experience, but you can't miss an episode.
  • (16) Or as if diversity of leadership and ownership did not really matter, as long as the data-driven, responsively designed new news becomes a radical and successful enough departure from the drab anecdote laden guff put out by those other men.
  • (17) Statements from the insurance industry are vague and nebulous – plenty of reassuring guff about encouraging market conditions, rather than new insurance products we can actually buy.
  • (18) Is it, for all Nick Clegg's guff about "progressive cuts", that the real agenda is to complete the demolition job on welfare states that was started in the 1980s?
  • (19) Tech City and Year of Code may be lovely and shiny, but we need to move beyond the PR guff.
  • (20) <Insert guff about how it might be the stroke of luck he needs to compile a matchwinning 62,867 not out here>.