This one is old-fashioned and rural, but my high school Latin teacher,
who had grown up on a dairy farm, told our class one day in 1954 that a
good way to remember the spelling of "separate," as opposed to words
like "desperate," is to say the sentence, "There is A RAT in the (cream)
separator." Apparently that happened often enough that it made an
impression on her, and 50 years later I never write "separate" without
thinking of her good advice.
Dwayne Strasheim
Hastings College
-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Beason [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 1:12 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: silly tips (was 'affect/effect')
Linda,
I also remember learning the 'pal' trick for 'principle/principal'
didn't always work well. That's the problem with tips based on chance
similiarities. But like you, I still use them at times.
Here's one I might have mentioned on this list months ago. One way to
remember the difference between "it's" and "its" is to think visually:
the apostrophe is, in a way, like the little dot on the letter "i". The
spatial similarity btwn the dot and apostrophe helps you envision an "i"
where the apostrophe is in "it's"--and that's what "it's" of course
stands for ("it is"). Hard to explain this in email. Hope it makes
some sense.
Larry
-------------------------------
Larry Beason
Director of Composition
Dept. of English, Univ. of South Alabama
Mobile, AL 36688
251-460-7861
-------------------------------
>>> [log in to unmask] - 6/10/04 11:50 AM >>>
Larry,
I really appreciate your tip on using "alter" to help decide between
"affect" and "effect." You may have referred to it at the end of your
message as a "silly tip," but I think those are excellent ways to help
students learn, use, and remember the rules for our complicated language
more easily. I appreciate the other practical tips others have shared
differentiating between "affect" and "effect" as well.
Do any of you out there have other practical
teaching/training gems you've used like this to help
students master the complexities of our language--for usage issues,
punctuation, grammar, sentence structure, etc.? Since I teach written
and oral grammar skills to adults in the business world, I'm like a
sponge ready to soak up any practical, fun tips you'd be willing to
share.
One usage idea I've used successfully is telling those who confuse
"stationery" and "stationary" to note that the word ending in "ery"
equates to "paper" or "writer," both of which end in "er."
However, a tip that got me in trouble years ago was
mentioning in a workshop that a good way to decide between "principle"
and "principal" is to realize that "principal" is your "pal, so in
every other context, "principle" would be correct.
Well, I think you can imagine the stir that caused among my banking
clients as I insisted all of their loan forms containing the word
"principal" were incorrect. Was I dismayed to learn that "principal"
actually relates to "main" or "foremost," so the banks had been using
"principal" correctly all along. Thankfully, we were able to laugh
about this, and as a result I learned a better way to distinguish
between these two sound-alike words: "principle" should be used when
referring to "rule," easy to recall since both words end in "le."
Isn't our language fascinating? I hope to see lots of practical ways
you've all used to simplify grammar, punctuation, and usage issues for
your students.
Thank you!
Linda Comerford
Comerford Consulting
6314 Onyx Circle
Indianapolis, IN 46237
317.786.6404
[log in to unmask]
www.comerfordconsulting.com
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