I always thought turtles mostly live in the water and tortoises mostly lived on land.

Simple!

Turtle: pretty chill dude cruising the East Australian Current

Tortoise: teaching Pandas Kung-Fu

Tortoises are Turtles, but not all Turtles are Tortoises.

This isn't an English thing, this is a taxonomy thing. It should be the same in any language, just with different words used.

A turtle lives in water, a tortoise lives on land. A turtle's not a tortoise, it's not hard to understand.

Simple. One can be thrown into water and it'll be OK. The other...not so much.

German: that toad looking thing has a shield on it

Easy! A turtle is flippy flips and a tortoise is clompy clomps.

Tortoises are land animals. Simple.

Frogs and toads might be a better one - there's no systematic difference except toads are ugly.

flippers and feet.

This is your reminder that taxonomically fish and trees do not exist.

All tortoises are turtles (but not all turtles are tortoises) from a biology point of view. Tortoises specifically being exclusively land-based members of the turtle (Testudines) order. So there is a difference.

And “spring” doesn’t really have different meanings - as per the root of the word, it always means some variant of “to burst forth”. There’s lots of different definitions for the word but they’re all rooted in the same place, from an etymology point of view.

The season bursting forth from the winter darkness and cold, the metal coil as it bursts forth when released from compression, the source of water as it bursts forth from the ground, bursting forth someone out of jail, etc.

Homographs are the real problem - when two different words, over time, become spelled the same.

Sow, lead, close, bear. All have multiple etymologies where different words eventually became spelled the same. Those are the worst!

English is a truly crazy mashup of Latin, Greek, French, German, Celtic, Norse and more.

The biggest difference is that turtles live in and around water, while tortises are entirely land based.

Would be simpler just to call them turtles and landturtles.

They are waaaaaay different what are you talking about..

English: owl

German: Eule, Uhu, Kauz

French: Hibou, Chouette

A tortoise is a kind of turtle, just like a toad is a kind of frog.

If you think "spring" is bad, go check how many different meanings there are for the word "set".

This is like the hare and rabbit thing... (what are the differences?)

My box turtle mostly lives on soil, although he enjoys a paddle and soak in his water. But the main difference from a tortoise is that he's omnivorous, needing protein like bugs, whereas they are herbivores.

One is an animal and the other a military formation, duh.

Well a tortoise could never become a ninja.

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The pedant trap has been set…