Q: Authorization vs Authentication? Which is which?

Kalle Fagerberg — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 16:58:05 +0000

I'm not a native English/American speaker. Sometimes this strikes me more than expected. One of these occasions is definitely with the words Authorization and Authentication.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but when I hear either of the terms I can't help but to always google the definitions. I'm constantly mixing them in my head and can never make an educated guess on which is which.

From my perspective, this is nothing common. I see almost noone online expressing the same problem. However everyone at my office (of the same non-English native tongue as me) experiences the same issue. So my questions goes:

Are you a native English/American speaker but also struggle with the two words, the same way I am? Or do you also have English as second language, but have never struggled with these two words?
Have you (no matter native tongue) also struggled with it, but overcome with some sort of memory rule to keep the two apart? And if so, what?

That last bit is the most important question. I need a memory rule so I can keep them apart, and so I can tell my colleagues so we won't pick the wrong name suffix for our classes for the 9th time.

(Cover photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels)

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Q: Authorization vs Authentication? Which is which?