Take the 2-minute tour ×

I'm confused by the following sentence:

Will I need to know this particular information again, and if so, will it be difficult to locate?

In this sentence, is "to locate" a synonym of "to remember" or "to memorize"?

share|improve this question

2 Answers 2

up vote 6 down vote accepted

No, it is not. This is a straight use of the verb "locate".


  1. Discover the exact place or position of: "engineers working to locate the fault".

So for example, to locate your shoes means finding them somewhere in the house.

The question "Will it be difficult to locate?" means "Will it be hard for me to find the information again?" Perhaps the information is buried in a hard-to-find book, or is deep in some webpage on the internet. The asker has no interest in memorizing this information; he wants to know if he will be able to find the book or other source of information that has that information.

share|improve this answer
Thank you, it is crystal clear now. –  Ulukam Oct 5 '11 at 16:31

Neither. In this sentence, to locate means to look up.

The speaker is not asking if they will have difficulty memorizing the information, as presumably they assume that the won't remember. Rather, they are asking if they'll be able to find the information in a reference work of some kind, and how difficult it will be to locate the reference and find the desired information.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer


