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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