twist vs bend

[Johan]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to know if "to twist" and "to bend" are interchangeable or each of them must be used in a specific way. Could you give me some examples to clear things up please?
Also, when one unscrews a the lid of a bottle, can one use "to twist" instead of unscrew? And can one use "to twist" for "to screw"?

thanks a lot for your help.

[Jamie (K)]

Twisting is a spiral sort of movement. Bending is more horizontal.

You bend your arm many times daily at the elbow, but if someone twists your arm, he's turning it in a spiral direction, and your arm isn't meant to bend that way. OUCH!

You can say that you twist off a bottle cap. In fact, in the United States and Canada, many bottles of cheaper beer have "twist-off" caps.

In this video you can see Chubby dance. When he really gets active, you can see that spiral motion. That's why this dance was called the Twist.


Since you're in Cannes, you may prefer to watch Johnny Halliday and 50 million Dutch people do the Twist.

[Johan]

Hey Jamie,

thanks a lot for your very clear explanation!