"What'da you see?" was the question.
"A bunch of brown cows," was the answer.
And the answer was correct. There were a number of cows in the field and they were definitely brown in colour. But that wasn't all. There were some additional distinguishing features to individual animals.
To the Maasai herdsman, I'm told, (and likely to any experienced farmer of any culture) there were eight cows with significant differences. Two were pregnant and would calve within the next week, and they would probably do so easily as they had before. One was pregnant with her first calf and should be watched to ensure an uneventful birth. One was lethargic and not feeding or even chewing a cud and would need careful watching. One had an infection in her left eye.
Who cares? Well if they were your cows, you would, but even if you have no interest in bovine matters beyond the price of milk, there is something important in the example. Distinctions are a matter of engagement and perception. You care or not and you can look and see or not. What distinctions are important to you?
I go to the store and check every item, as many of you do, to see that it was produced in Canada; and I check to see that it was "produced" rather than simply packaged here. That distinction has become significant in recent years. Some other distinctions in that realm had our PM recently call our negotiating team home from Washington.
But, what is it to make a distinction? One definition is "to discern" which means to perceive or recognize the way something differs from what's around it. How does it stand out from a background or how is it unique among similar items? And, for some us, for some things, at some times, who cares?
We ate farmed fish in Peru; we won't touch it here. In Peru, it's trout raised in fresh-water pens; in BC, it's Atlantic salmon from salt-water farms with lice infestations that are destroying wild stocks.
We can drop the gloves here and look at distinctions in terms that can cause real upsets, even brawls. Jews are either a group of people I don't think much about or they're a religious group that have interesting but harmless practices or they're a brave people who after centuries of terrible persecution are fighting to establish a democratic nation in a hostile environment or they're a belligerent group of people usurping land they have no inherent right to and killing innocent others in the process. Or they're something else.
Usually at this point, someone wants to make the distinction of Jews versus Zionists or Jews versus Israelis or Israeli Zionists versus … well, you have heard the arguments too and probably heard other distinctions made. And of course we could carve up other factions in the world of religion and culture as well; it's just that the body count of children in the present conflict in Gaza engages us to check our perceptions with a particular focus.
Besides the significance of distinctions between culture and religion, we could ask for clarity concerning terms within a much broader context. For instance, democracy and liberalism are not the same thing as anyone from ancient Athens to modern Turkey would say, as are not social democracy and communism as some critics will assert.
A faction is not hegemony, although it can exist within it, as some animal (or any other) rights activists may be a faction within the hegemony of western liberal democracies, a distinction that may only become important in refuting accusations of disloyalty during an election. (Too broad and too vague, I know)
Everyone would likely agree that a job may or may not be one's avocation and quote Churchill's saying, "You make a living by what you get and you make a life by what you give."
And, of course we never confuse opinion and fact unless it's our opinion.
We never mix up reasons and rationales.
Or liberation and invasion.
Or selective breeding and eugenics.
And so on we could go, for all those linguistic pairs you once learned or that editors now set forth as "acceptable terms" for the reporting of conflicts. Of course it is a matter of education to teach a student the difference between such words as adverse and averse or biannual and biennial and quite another to censure a journalist for writing about "Palestinian resistance" instead of "vicious terrorist attack". There, we hope that a teacher would have instructed both editor and reporter in the distinction "connotative" and "denotative" language.
So, persons holding different views may be considered:
zealots or patriots
terrorists or victims
weirdos or neighbours
demonstrators or mobs
addicts or people who use drugs
buskers or beggars
But as well as the social distinction, we may ask what motivates the person choosing to employ one specific term over another. It could be as simple as the roles of employee and employer.
So, here's a very apt distinction that has been made recently: minimum wage vs living wage. In BC, we now have a minimum wage of $18.25; however, in November 2025, Living Wage BC announced the living wage for Metro Vancouver is $27.85 per hour. Sure, there are differences in housing and other costs between rural and metropolitan BC, but not close to $10 an hour. As long as there exists that kind of spread, the social costs will continue.
I know we have all complained about the escalation in tipping defaults on restaurant bills. Where it was once left completely up to a diner, the amounts shown on the screen now may start at 14% and go up in 2% increments. It's a determined patron who selects "other" and enters an amount at his or her own discretion. Yes, we are subsidizing the waiter's pay and there have been reports of employers charging us for the service.
When I once read of the practice on Vancouver Island, I asked the next server I met if her employer took a percentage of the tips as a "management fee". She assured me that it did not happen at that restaurant but she had heard of it from friends in other places. I contrast those situations with an experience in New Zealand only a few years ago.
I went up to the till to pay my bill and asked the cashier about the non-tipping practice there. She pointed to a box labelled "Royal Lifesaving Society" and said she told customers they could put change there if they wanted. There was another box for RSPCA with some coins in it as well.
Then she added that she made a minimum wage of $19.00 an hour and with her boyfriend's also-minimum wage they could afford a nice apartment and live comfortably. This was a few years ago and Google tells me NZ now pays $23.95 for experienced adults and $19.16 for inexperienced 16-17 year olds, although the living wage there is still $29.90. The young woman in NZ added that she and boyfriend were thinking of moving to Australia where the minimum wage was higher. I don't remember what she said it was then, but Google says it's now $26.44; but, look at this excerpt from The Guardian last week:
The Guardian Aug. 11 2026
Delivery drivers to be paid minimum $31.30 an hour across Australia in ‘world-leading’ decision
Fair Work Commission issues a new minimum standards order for gig workers to come into effect 17 August by Catie McLeod Consumer affairs reporter
Delivery drivers in Australia will be paid a minimum rate of $31.30 (US $22.05/£16.35) an hour and insured for injuries on the job under a landmark agreement approved by the industrial umpire that could set a precedent in other countries.
The Fair Work Commission (FWC) on Tuesday issued a new minimum standards order for gig workers who perform on-demand delivery of food, drinks, or groceries, and the operators of the digital platforms who engage their services.
And the shrill clamour from some employers that if they paid staff a living wage or didn't have staff rely on customers' tips, they'd all go bankrupt has been debunked many times in many places; however, those employers really do face some discrimination from the very customers they're trying to placate. The higher prices they would need to charge to give their workers a fair wage could make their businesses less desirable to consumers. It needs government intervention on a national scale as in many European countries.
Next to money and politics and bloodshed, we are concerned about distinctions in health care, as in, "What health care will there be for me when I need it?" and at some point, we will all need it. At the end, we are going to be beholden to some one (of our family or friends) or some facility (in hospice or seniors' care home). There are already some sharp distinctions in the quality of care provided by facilities, often dependent on where you are. You know your own situation better than I do. Beverly says I'm gonna be flushed, but I think she's remembering her first goldfish.
Universal medical care differs from country to country and Canada is not at the top when itcomes to service in that area. I once needed medical treatment for a bout of pneumonia during a trip to France. The tour guide accompanied me to a hospital where a doctor examined both me and the X-rays that were taken, and gave me a prescription to be filled. When I came back from the 'pharmacie" and tapped on the glass at the hospital reception cubicle to ask, "Combien ca coute? or Combien je vous dois?" or something like that, the response was to be waved away with the reply, "We have your address. The bill will come to you." Three weeks later I got the bill at my Victoria address for 96 euros which my travel insurer promptly repaid.
You have your own stories about quality of medical care in different jurisdictions, I'm sure, but the distinction "medical insurance" comes layered with different elements, the most prominent being public or private or combined. Provinces here are all under pressure to increase commercial access (distinct from infiltration?) to health care money. In hospitals we have seen cafeterias that once produced meals for patients and staff and were even lunch hour destinations for community, become mere distribution centres for mass-produced limited items that would be "reconstituted" on site. Cleaning services have also degraded to the point of mandated government investigation in many places.
And this topic called "Distinctions" could go on forever, but I'd like to call up this final discernment; namely, concluded versus finished. The former leaves us with much more to unravel beyond this point of consideration whenever the discussion becomes muddied. The latter says it's all over. Someone, and I'll credit Socrates, told us, "We will be better and braver to stand in not knowing rather than in the certainty that there is nothing more to know." Well, I have little claim to bravery but I am working on being better.