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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6984143" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is simply not true as a matter of ordinary English usage.Consider the following:A: "Where are my keys?"B: "You're looking right at them!"A: "Where? I can't see them."B: "On the table in front of you - in the shadow of the pot-plant!"A: "Oh, thanks! I hadn't noticed them in the dappled light and shadow."That is a perfectly comprehensible exchange between native English speakers. In which A is (as B says) looking right at his/her keys and yet has not noticed them.If I, and everyone else I've spoken with about this were talking about someone trying remaining hidden, we would have used remaining hidden.  That's the natural usage there, not "try to hide".  Is it a possible usage?  Sure.  It's not the natural one, though.</blockquote>Maxperson, I'm a native English speaker with a PhD in a literary discipline who writes professionaly in my field. I don't need a lesson on the meaning of the words "observer", "watcher" and "watch".And once again you display carelessness in your glossing. The two definitions that mention "observe" don't mention "seeing that thing" (whatever "that thing" is meant to refer to).The first: to observe, as to see what comes is a verb of attempt, not a verb of success. That is, someone can be watching or observing, as to see what comes, yet fail. Consider the following example of such a usage: "The guerillas sneaked past our observers at the boundary of the village."The second (or seventh, if you prefer) - to keep under observation or view, so as to see or learn something - likewise doesn't entail success. A person might be watching a football game, or a movie, so as to see something (eg what happens, who wins) and yet fail to do so (eg because s/he blinks, or his/her mind wanders off, or the action becomes too fast for her to follow, etc). A practical example of this is refereeing a sporting match: the referee is watching/observing the game, and yet sometimes may not see the precise details of a move or play, especially if it happens very quickly. This is why some sporting codes permit referees to postpone making a decision until they watch a slow-motion replay of the action of the game. To give a concrete example, a cricket umpire who says "I was watching as closely as I could, but wasn't able to see whether the batsman was out LBW," doesn't utter a contradiction.In other words - not all watchers succeed in seeing the things they are watching for, nor in seeing every detail of the event that they are watching.[/QUOTE]

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