Are 'fail' and 'let down' equal?

UknowN   Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:17 pm GMT
Lately, I have been asked about translation of 'Love fails, only when we fail to love' and it just occured to me whether I can substitute 'let down' for 'fail' or not.
What's the difference between them anyway?
What would 'Love lets down, only when we let love down' mean?
Fahrenheit   Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:45 pm GMT
They're pretty similar, but there are probably some situations that you wouldn't want to interchange them.
Another Guest   Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:24 pm GMT
This being such a situation. "Fail" can be transitive or intransitive (and has slightly different meaning in the two cases), but "let down" is always transitive. Furthermore, the object comes between "let" and "down". So one can say "Love lets us down", but not "Love lets down us", and certainly not "Love let down". Also, I don't think that comma in the original quote should be there.
Robin Michael   Tue Jun 23, 2009 9:49 pm GMT
'Love fails, only when we fail to love'

The reason why this is a clever expression is because it uses the same word in two different ways.

'Love fails': Love stops

'We fail': We are unable to do something.

So the meaning is that;

'Love stops, when we are unable to do something'.


'Let down' means something different.


I felt very let down by someone.

I was disappointed by someone.

'Let down' means 'deflate'.


The meaning of 'let down' and 'fail' are similar but different. So they cannot be used interchangeably.