by Jennie Ruby 
This week I bring you more spelling and word usage aids. Aimee Bosse brings us three that are more about word usage than just spelling. These pairs of words are easily confused, so a memory aid is the best way to keep them straight, short of looking them up every time you use them.
Lisa J Stumpf gives us another version of the desert versus dessert distinction:
And one more, just on spelling, brought to us by Marsha Kuhn:
Grammar Pet Peeves: Word Crimes
While sending in these memory aids, several of you wrote in to tell me about Weird Al's video "Word Crimes." I totally love it! Thank you! Check it out if you have not seen it before.
And in the spirit of Word Crimes, this week I'd like to hear from you about your grammar pet peeves-you know you have them! Aimee Bosse starts us off with these:
Residence versus residents: this should be a no-brainer! Someone living in my college dorm actually wrote a sign asking "residence" to be considerate of others.
Torturous (pertaining to torture) versus tortuous (indirect, not straightforward)--think of the extra R in torturous for Really painful.
Discreet (showing prudence) versus discrete (separate, distinct)--you separate the e's with the t.
Premier (head of state or first in rank) versus premiere (first public showing)--not sure of an easy way to remember, for me an extra e makes it look more fancy [you have to really dress up to go to the premiere--JR].
Discreet (showing prudence) versus discrete (separate, distinct)--you separate the e's with the t.
Premier (head of state or first in rank) versus premiere (first public showing)--not sure of an easy way to remember, for me an extra e makes it look more fancy [you have to really dress up to go to the premiere--JR].
Lisa J Stumpf gives us another version of the desert versus dessert distinction:
You want more dessert so use more letters--two s's.
And one more, just on spelling, brought to us by Marsha Kuhn:
My seventh grade teacher told us that the "villain lives in the villa."
Grammar Pet Peeves: Word Crimes
While sending in these memory aids, several of you wrote in to tell me about Weird Al's video "Word Crimes." I totally love it! Thank you! Check it out if you have not seen it before.
And in the spirit of Word Crimes, this week I'd like to hear from you about your grammar pet peeves-you know you have them! Aimee Bosse starts us off with these:
Residence versus residents: this should be a no-brainer! Someone living in my college dorm actually wrote a sign asking "residence" to be considerate of others.
Feel free to post your grammar pet peeves below as comments.
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Three of my grammar pet peeves:
-- He's taller than me instead of he is taller than I (am tall).
-- How are you? I'm good. (as opposed to bad?) I'm well, or I'm fine, and I do good.
-- If a student wants a copy of their transcript, they should ask the secretary.
About thirty or so years ago, it became politically incorrect to use the masculine pronoun, he, to cover male and female subjects. I've been accused of being pedantic, but it gets my hackles up to use a plural pronoun to replace a singular noun. Why can't we invent gender-neutral singular pronoun, or else use it in place of they?
Posted by: Suzy Glespen | December 08, 2014 at 10:09 AM