Arlene Miller's Blog, page 62

Peculiar Prepositions

Do you wait in line? Or do you wait on line? Well, if you are in Great Britain, you wait on line, but if you are in America, you wait in line. To me, waiting on line doesn’t make any sense — unless I am waiting for my computer to find a website!

On, in, and other (usually) little words like up, at, to, by, of and some bigger words like after, before, within, with, from, below, above, and between (and about a hundred more, including about) are prepositions. They are part of a phrase that tells where, when, or what kind. The use of prepositions can be really confusing to someone trying to learn English. Some phrases are fairly obvious, like these:

I am walking to the store.

Please go up the stairs.

The shoes are under the bed.

However, others are idiomatic, which means they aren’t really literal, but because you speak English, you pretty much know which one to use. For example, “It’s raining cats and dogs” and “My dog weighs a ton” are idioms. They don’t really mean the words that they say, but you get the idea of what they mean. Similarly, some prepositions are idiomatic and just simply go with certain words. For example, I might say, “I am crazy about him.” Well, first of all, the whole thing is an idiom, anyway, because I am not really crazy (or am I?). But we know what it means. However, why do we use about as the preposition? It doesn’t really make any more sense than saying, “I’m crazy on you,” does it?

No wonder, nonnative speakers have such trouble with prepositions:

Is it toward or towards? In England it is generally towards, but in America it is toward. Just a style thing.

If you are the kind of person who uses the word inherent, what preposition follows it? And what is the difference between using it as a noun and an adjective?

The trait is inherent in oldest children.

It is inherent to want to fight back. (actually infinitives)

I have an inherent fear of flying.

Now if you were a nonnative speaker, you might, for that last sentence, say,”I have an inherent fear to fly.” We don’t say it that way, but why not?

And to continue. . . .

Do you die from something or of something? I nearly died from embarrassment! Or is it of embarrassment?

You live in a city. But you live on a street. Do you live by the ocean or near the ocean? Or on the ocean?

Or what does it mean when you say, “On the one hand….”?  Or is it “On one hand….”? (I don’t think it matters)…but you then say, “On the other hand….” and not “On other hand.”

Is she sitting on this side of the room or in this side of the room? In a chair or on a chair?

We usually comment on something, but I guess we could comment about something. We make a comment about something.

If we run a red light (which is an odd construction in itself….who is running??), were are in trouble, not with trouble or at trouble.

We then might get our revenge on someone, but not with someone or to someone, or against someone.

Do you work in a company, at a company, or for a company? Or at home? You probably wouldn’t work in home.

Do you knock on the door? At the door?

Is it at the beginning or in the beginning? At the beginning of the book. . . .In the beginning, the book. . . .????

It’s on Tuesday, but at 2 o’clock, and in an hour.

You wait on your customers,  for your friends to arrive, and at the corner. And sometimes you just wait up!

Here are some idiomatic prepositions that pretty much always go with certain words:

It is different from, not different than. But it’s similar to.

You can agree on a plan, but you agree with a person.

You are opposed to something, but in favor of something.

You are in charge of the children, not with or to.

You part with your boat, but you part from your girlfriend.

Something is inferior to something else.

You are involved in boating, but involved with your girlfriend.

And speaking of idioms with prepositions. . . .

It’s For all intents and purposes, NOT

F or all intensive purposes!

Words . . . gotta love ‘em.

 

Speaking of words. . . . . need some books???? 

 

 

 

Book Review: “The Opposite of Maybe” by Maddie Dawson

A new addition to the Grammar Diva Blog? Yes, I will be posting some book reviews. However, these posts will not be sent to subscribers. Just check the website for new reviews!

Review:

If you like women’s literature, you will love this book. The characters are funny and poignant at the same time. It is not really predictable, but you may find yourself rooting for a certain ending and for certain characters. It is easy to read and hard to put down! I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read about relationships….not just between men and women, but between family members as well.

Jonathan and Rosie have been together forever….at forty-four she finds herself pregnant. At the same time Soapie, the grandmother who raised her, is beginning to need constant care. The young gardener, Tony, has taken it upon himself to be the caregiver. Meanwhile, quirky Jonathan moves away to begin a teacup museum.  Where do Rosie’s loyalties lie? Where does her heart lie?

Four and a half stars out of five!

“I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.”

Read, Write, and Blue!

Some quotes about America, independence, and other such things…
Happy 4th of July!

 

We must stop talking about the American dream and start listening to the dreams of the Americans.

-Ruben Askew

Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We’ve been so busy damning ourselves for years. We’ve done it all, and yet we don’t take credit for it.

-Ray Bradbury

America is a land where men govern, but women rule.

-John Mason Brown

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

-Sir Winston Churchill

If you don’t know how great this country is, I know someone who does: Russia.

-Robert Frost

The trouble with this country is that there are too many people going about saying, The trouble with this country is…

-Sinclair Lewis

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.

-E. B. White

It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting.

-Tom Stoppard

Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.

-Omar Bradley

The ideology of capitalism makes us all into connoisseurs of liberty — of the indefinite expansion of possibility.

-Susan Sontag

Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being somebody, to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation. One can either see or be seen.

-John Updike

Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.

-Mahatma Gandhi

I believe everyody in the world should have guns. Citizens should have bazookas and rocket launchers too. I believe that all citizens should have their weapons of choice. However, I also believe that only I should have the ammunition. Because frankly, I wouldn’t trust the rest of the goobers with anything more dangerous than string.

-Scott Adams

Without moral and intellectual independence, there is no anchor for national independence.

-David Ben-Gurion

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.

-Sir Winston Churchill

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives, that it is inside ourselves.

-Albert Camus

There hasn’t been peace on earth because people can’t seem to figure out that the real enemy is the people manipulating world events from behind the scenes for their own selfish interests.

-James Dye

I am glad my ancestors arrived on the Mayflower, but I am gladder that there are nine generations between us.

-William Lyon Phelps

Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States.

-J. Bartlett Brebner

You’ve never lived until you’ve almost died, for those who fought for it, life has a flavor the protected will never know.

 -Anon. from Viet Nam, 1968

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.

 -Otto von Bismarck

Where liberty is, there is my country.

-Benjamin Franklin

 

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. ~Erma Bombeck

 

Have a safe and spirited Fourth of July!

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Weird and Wonderful Words (Part 5: O,P Q)

Me and My Peruke

Well, it’s time to add more weird and wonderful words to our vocabularies!  Look back at the previous installments of this series: Weird and Wonderful Words Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4….and enjoy Part 5!

Defenestrate is still one of my favorite words of all times, but I might find a new favorite here:

O Words:

Onychophagy – The habit of biting one’s fingernails

Obsolagnium – Waning sexual desire due to age

Ochlophobia - Fear of crowds

Odonterism – Chattering of teeth

Oikology – The science of housekeeping

Opsimath - One who learns late in life

Ozostomia - Bad breath

I guess I am just an opsimath! I never did learn oikology, and I still do a bit of onychopagy once in a while. But at least I don’t have obsolagnium or ozostoma!

 

P Words:

Pabouche – A slipper

Parorexia - A desire to eat strange foods

Peccable – Liable to sin

Perruquier - Wig maker

Peruke – A frilly wig

Phengophobia - Fear of daylight

Philopornist - Lover of prostitutes

Philosophunculist – One who pretends to know more than one knows to impress others

Pogonotomy – The act of cutting a beard

Pyknic – Short and fat (I guess if you have too many picnics!)

Pinguid - Fat

Plurilateral – Having more than three letters

Puericulture - Child-rearing

You know how there is no corrigible, but there is incorrigible? And there is indignant, but no dignant??? Well, there IS impeccable and peccable!

I am glad I don’t have phenogophobia! If I did, I would have to put on my peruke and go skulking about at night! Then I might be peccable. However, that is not the case, and my puericulture is fine, evidenced by the fact that my children are not pinguid or pkynic. Nor do they have podobromhidrosis!

Q Words:

Qualtagh – The first person you see after leaving your house

Quidnunc - Someone who always wants to know what is going on

Quagswag – To shake to and fro

Quiddle – A fastidious person

Quinquagenarian – A person between 50 and 59 years old

Quinquiplicate – To multiply by 5

Quat – A pimple or insignificant person

Quoz - An absurd person or thing

My friend is such a quiddle! When we go out dancing, she won’t even quagswag! Even though she is a quinquagenarian, she doesn’t have to be such a quoz!

Well, gotta go now..I feel a bit of parorexia coming on. . .

 

Don’t forget that you can get all five of The Grammar Diva’s books in PDF format for just $20!!!

 

And then there is Amazon for print books and e-books!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People Say the Darndest Things!

Darndest?? Now is that a word? The little red squiggle underneath it tells me it isn’t. But I have heard of it, and maybe you are old enough to have heard of it too. (Hint: Used in a television show in the wayback. Oh, I guess wayback isn’t a word either.)

Bu that’s okay because unusual, weird, and maybe just plain wrong things that people say is the subject of this blog post!

How about, for example, all of the sudden? I have always said it that way, but then I just edited a book that used “all of a sudden.” I looked it up to find that my particular resource preferred all of a sudden. I think they are both OK, but what is the difference, really? It’s just one article or the other one. And why not just use suddenly??

Here is a good one for you. Did you ever say, Well, that’s a whole nother story! Ever stop to think about whether nother is a word or not? Of course, it isn’t.  Seems to me that it is really another whole story. In that case, I will call it a split pronoun (another: split into an and nother). You’ve heard of splitting infinitives, but I bet you’ve never heard of splitting a pronoun!

Ever hear someone say It’s a mute point? Well, while it is true that points don’t talk (or do they?), the correct word is moot (debatable, doubtful, or not worth talking about).

I get asked sometimes whether the correct expression is different than or different from. In case you, too, are wondering, different from is preferred.

At first I thought it was just my own kids who said on accident rather than by accident. Then, I discovered it was all kids. Then I discovered it was even younger adults.  Maybe it makes sense because it is on purpose. But it is still by accident….until it changes.

I actually never heard anyone say this one….but apparently the British say it: good on you instead of good for you.

There are differing opinions on this one, and I would guess it really depends on the context and the situation. Do you work at a company, with a company, or for a company? All are correct…it just depends.

Rim and brim are both the top edges of cups. So do you fill to the rim or to the brim? Grammar Girl Mignon Fogerty has checked this one out, and apparently brim refers to the inside of the  top edge of the cup — so I guess that is why we fill it to the brim.

If you dance around the pole, it is probably May Day. If your ship is sinking, it is probably Mayday!

Ever go into Starbucks and order a drink? (Well, I sure have…) And the barista asks you, Did you want whip on that? Yes, I did, and I still do! Why do people generally use the past tense for questions like that? Hmmm….it is probably because for some reason, it sounds more polite. Don’t know why, but it does.

So we aren’t supposed to end a sentence with a preposition. Well, actually we can, but that was the old “rule.” Ever think about ending a sentence with certain contractions? No, I can’t sounds perfectly fine, but what about I don’t know where you’re. Think about it…..

If you have any more of these People Say the Darndest Things, please comment or e-mail me! I’m listening…..

 

Don’t forget to click on the Book Templates icon over on the right if you are interested in designing your own books easily, using Word, designing your own book cover, or making up a media kit. And if you need anything (like maybe a grammar book) from Amazon, click over on that icon — also on the right side of this page.  And yes, the grammar workbook is coming……..along just fine!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Confusing Words – End of the Series (two, too, to bad!)

Ah yes. . . all good things must come to an end. And here we are at the end of the alphabet for confusing words. Of course, the blog will continue, and if you have any more confusing words, please send them to me….as well as any ideas of things you would like to see in this blog. We are always open to ideas! So here we go. . .

1. Stationary/Stationery - The one that ends in -ary means “standing still.” You remember this by remembering that there is an a in place (standing in place). Yes, there is also an e in place, but it is silent! The one ending in -ery is the pretty paper. Does anyone use it anymore?

I just bought a stationary bike.

My stationery has pretty pink flowers on it.

2. Then/Than - Then is an adverb and refers to time. Than is used for comparison. Much of the time the wrong one indicates a typo.

Now and then I eat chocolate.

Chocolate is better than wheatgrass.

Please remember that then is not a conjunction, and you can’t connect sentences with it!

I ate dinner, then I watched TV. Wrong!

3. There/Their/They’re - Yes, this one is still sometimes written incorrectly!

There is a place: Go sit over there.

Their is possessive: I am their mother.

They’re is a contraction meaning they are. They’re with their mother over there.

4. Titles: Italics or quotes? Do you often wonder whether to use italics or quotes when you are writing book titles? Here is the general rule: Use italics (or underline if you are writing by hand) for big things. Use quotes for parts of those things.

Italics: Book titles, CD titles, movie titles, magazine and newspaper titles, play and opera titles, TV series titles.

Quotes: Chapter titles, song titles, poem titles, magazine and newspaper article titles, TV episode titles, titles of acts in plays.

Note that we are not talking about the title on the book cover itself. We are talking about what to do with titles when we write about them in text.

5. To/Too/Two - Yes, this one is still written incorrectly too!

To is a preposition that tells where: I am going to the store.

Too is an adverb that means either “also” or “overly”: I am going too. This is too salty.

Two is a number. I have two pencils.

Note that when you use too at the end of a sentence, you don’t need a comma before it, but when you use it in the middle of a sentence, it is set off in commas if it means also: I, too, am going, but I am going too.

6. Toward/Towards -  Use either one. They are the same, except Americans generally drop the s; the British use the s.

7. Try and/Try to -  The correct phrase is try to.

I will try to finish the cleaning this morning.

8. Warranty/Warrantee - A warranty is the agreement you get with an appliance that says it will work or else! A warrantee is the person who receives the warranty.

9. Whose/Who’s - Whose is possessive. Who’s is a contraction that means who is.

Whose package is this?

It belongs to the man who’s in the front row.

10. Your/You’re - Same as whose and who’s. Your is possessive. You’re is a contraction that means you are.

Is this your package?

Yes, you’re correct.

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Yes! Grammar books make great Father’s Day and graduation gifts, especially for those students continuing their educations or seeking employment.

The Best Grammar Workbook Ever is coming along and should be available by late summer or early fall!

Shall We? Will We?? More Confusing Words

Time for more confusing words….hope you are enjoying this series, which will regrettably (see below!) be finished soon!

1. Real/Really - Real is an adjective meaning “true” or “in fact. It is used to describe nouns. Really is an adverb (clue: Most, but not all, words ending in -ly are adverbs) meaning “to a great extent”; therefore, it is used to describe verbs. Hmmm….but adverbs can also be used to describe nouns or other adverbs.  What you really want to avoid is using real when you mean really.

Is this a real diamond?

Is she really going out with him?

I did really well. (really describes the adverb well)

This is really beautiful. (really describes the adjective beautiful).

I did real well. (Incorrect: adjectives don’t describe adverbs)

This is real pretty. (Incorrect…use really. Means to what extent? How pretty?)

2. Regretful/Regrettable – Regretful means full of regret. Regrettable means to be regretted. People are usually regretful, but  circumstances are regrettable. Here are some examples:

I am regretful that I didn’t study harder as a kid.

It is regrettable that I didn’t make better use of my education.

3.  Respectfully/Respectively – These two words are entirely different. Respectfully means full of respect. Respectively means in the order given.

Please respectfully stand when the national anthem is played.

My favorite colors are blue, green, and red, respectively. (Blue, and then green, and then red.)

4. Rise/Raise -  Refer back to lay and lie for this one.It is the same rule. Rise is intransitive and has no direct object. However, raise has a direct object. In other words, you must raise something:

Please raise the flag when I give the instructions.

I watch the sun rise from my balcony every morning.

Note: The past tense of raise is raised. Past participle is has/have raised. The past tense of rise is rose. Part participle is has/have risen.

5. Say/Tell – Well, although it is difficult to describe, there is a difference that is pretty easy for those of us who are native English speakers. Saying is like speaking. Telling usually involves saying something to someone. Sometimes say doesn’t have a direct object. Tell generally does, and it often has an indirect object as well.

He told me a story. (He didn’t say me a story.) (Me is the indirect object, and story is the direct object.)

He said that he was going. (Said doesn’t really have a direct object; the whole clause the he was going is the object.)

Tell me the truth. (Don’t say me the truth. Me is the indirect object, and truth is the direct object.)

6. Shall/Will – Shall is pretty much gone from our language except in very formal writing. If you want to use shall, use it with first person pronouns only (I,we); use will for second (you) and third (he/she/it) person. In cases where you want to want to appear determined or for special emphasis, turn it around. Use will for first person and shall for second and third person.

I shall go to the movies. You will go to the movies. He will go to the movies.

I will overcome this obstacle. You shall overcome this obstacle. He shall overcome this obstacle.

For the colloquialism, shall we? or shall we dance?, however, we cannot use will. Imagine saying Will be dance? It has an entirely different meaning. Shall we dance means Let’s dance.

7. Shined/Shone – Both are acceptable past tenses of shine. However, shined is often used with a direct object and shone is not.

I shined my shoes.

The sun shone.

8. Sit/Set - Thesse two verbs are like lie/lay and rise/raise. One takes a direct object and the other does not. In this case, set needs a direct object. You must set something. Note also that set is the same in the past tense and the past participle (has or have set).

Set your book down on the table.

Sit in this chair.

9. Sole/Soul – There are several meanings for these words:

Sole is a fish – I ate fillet of sole.

Sole is he bottom of your foot –  My sole hurts in these shoes.

Sole means alone – She is the sole person living in this big house.

Soul means a person or the spiritual essence of a person: Don’t tell a soul! I love you with my heart and soul.

10. Sometimes/Sometime/Some Time - These three are all different, although slightly.

Sometimes means some of the time – Sometimes I like to eat candy all day.

Sometime means at some future time – You will have to come over to my house sometime  soon.

Some time means just what it says – I have some time to spend with you tomorrow afternoon.

 

Watch Out! The Workbook Is Coming!

 

 

I Put a “Spell” on You!

Charcuterie, collyrium, exochorion, hallenkirche, logodaedaly, chartula. Could you spell these words if your life depended on it?

As you may know, one of my jobs is teaching English to 7th graders. One of my students has been asking all year to have a spelling bee. Well, the school year is winding down, the students  are checking out for summer, and the books have been collected.  I decided to have the spelling bee this past week without realizing that, coincidentally, the 87th Scripps National Spelling Bee was also this week in National Harbor, Maryland.

While I was asking challenging words like misspell (which is one of the 100 most commonly misspelled words in the English language), accommodate, and chrysanthemum, the National Spelling Bee is asking words like charcuterie, collyrium, exochorion, hallenkirche, logodaedaly, and chartula. The bee is sponsored this year by Micosoft and is open to students up through 8th grade.

Eleven million students began the bee in schools all over the country.  Just 281 of those made it to the semifinals in the Washington DC area.  After a week of grueling semifinals activities, the field is narrowed to 12 finalists and then a winner. The finals were televised on ESPN, so I guess spelling is a sport (yay!).

How does the spelling bee work? In the finals, each of the 12 contestants gets up one at a time for each round. They are given the word with any alternate pronunciations. The contestants are allowed to ask the definition, the part of speech, the etymology (language of origin), and for the word to be used in a sentence.  They can ask these same questions as many times as they want, but they have two minutes to correctly spell the word. Contestants cannot start over again; if the spelling is incorrect, they hear the dreaded bell. When there are three contestants left, the bee moves to the Championship List of 25 words. If two spellers are left after those words are exhausted, they are declared co-champions, and that is exactly what happened this year. It is only the fourth time that there has been a tie, the last time 50 years ago.

Here are some interesting facts and statistics about the bee:

The longest winning word (2004) was autochthonous (indigenous). Shortest winning word was luge (1984). 64 percent of past winning words were nouns,  18 percent adjectives, and 7 percent verbs. Since the bee began in 1925, there have been 48 girl winners and 41 boy winners.
This year, all 50 states  were represented as well as the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan, South Korea,  the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Department of Defense Schools in Europe.
Many of the contestants have been to the bee before, and some have siblings who have been finalists or have won before.
The youngest contestant this year was 8 years old!
The contestants have spelling coaches, sometimes their parents and sometimes not.
The winner(s) receives a cash prize of $30,000 and also some gifts.
One of the winning words in the final round this year was feuilleton.
Contestants have two minutes to spell the word. Once a letter is out of their mouths, it cannot be changed.
Contestants cannot write the word down, so you can often see them writing the word in the air. However, this year, many of them were typing the words on an imaginary keyboard.

Etymology: The origin of a word. Knowing the origin(s) of a word enable the spelling bee contestants to figure out the spelling even if  they have never seen the word before.  For example, if a word ends in a long a sound and is from the French, it may very well end in  -et (think of ballet and beret).

Orthography: The art of spelling words with the correct spelling

 

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“May” / “Might”—and More Confusing Words

A new week….must be time for more confusing words! Continue to enjoy and get unconfused!

1. Many/Much – Like fewer and less, one of this pair is for countable objects (usually plural nouns) and the other for things that can’t be counted (singular).

I don’t have many pencils (not much pencils), and I don’t have much paper.

2. May/Might – May implies permission or probability; might implies possibility. May and might meaning probability/possibility are very close and often interchangeable. However, it is accepted that may is used when something is more likely to happen than when might is used.

I might go to the play, but I probably will stay home.

If you had taken the other route, you might have had an accident!

You may take the rest of the pizza. (I give you permission.)

You may take the rest of the pizza. (probable, if you get hungry enough!)

3. More Important/More Importantly -More importantly is an adverb and used most often as a transition. More important is an adjective and usually used in a comparison.

I need to finish the reading for this course. More importantly, I need to get started on my project.

Getting started on my project is more important than going to the zoo today.

4. News/Mathematics/Physics and Other Such Singulars – Although these words end in -s, they are all singular and use singular verbs.

The news is good. (not are good)

Physics is a difficult subject for me.

5. None is/None are - This one can be tricky. None is one of the indefinite pronouns (other indefinite pronouns include someone, nobody, several, anything, and many more) that can be either singular or plural depending upon the noun to which it refers. That noun is often in a prepositional phrase that follows:

None of the cake is gone.

None of the people are here.

However, to confuse us more, none is singular when it means “not one” (and also in formal use).

None of the cookies has been eaten.  (Singular – means not one of the cookies has been eaten.)

The best thing to do is to say not one if that is what you mean — and use the singular verb. Otherwise, have the verb agree with the noun that is being referred to.

6. Only - I love this one, because  so much depends upon where you put it in the sentence. Only will generally go with the word it is closest to:

Only she punched her friend in the arm. (no one else did)

She only punched her friend in the arm. (she didn’t do anything else)

She punched only her friend in the arm. (no one else)

She punched her only friend in the arm. (no wonder!)

She punched her friend only in the arm. (nowhere else)

She punched her friend in her only arm. (too bad)

Usually, we don’t make mistakes in sentences like this, but there is a common mistake in the position of only:

We only have five dollars for the movie. (incorrect, but understandable)

We have only five dollars for the movie. (correct)

7. Passed/Past - Passed is the past tense of the verb to pass. Past is a preposition.

We passed the church on our way to school. (verb)

We went past the church on our way to school. (preposition)

8. Precede/Proceed -  Precede means “to come before” something else.  Proceed means “to continue along.”

The rally will precede the game.

The parade will proceed down Main Street.

9. Principal/Principle –  There are actually four meanings of these words: three of them are spelled principal, and only one is spelled principle.

There is a new principal of the high school. (head of a school)

I need to figure our the principal and interest of my mortgage. (financial meaning)

I received a principal role in the play. (the only adjective in the four; means the main one)

It is against my principles to lie. (rule or ethic)

“See” you next weekend for more confusing words!

Books make great graduation gifts (especially grammar books)….keep the learning going over the summer!

 

Graduate going off to college? A grammar book will really help with writing papers!