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Grammar 1. Parts of the Speech. Ed tech. 7th grade ELA. Random silly webpages. 1,600 Sayings, phrases and expressions - with their meanings and origins explained. Confused words exercises. Commonly confused words.

Take a look at these two sentences – one of them contains a mistake: I poured over book after book. We pored over the catalogues. Are you uncertain which one is right? There are a lot of words in English that look or sound alike but have very different meanings, such as pore and pour or flaunt and flout. It’s easy to get them confused and most electronic spellcheckers won’t be much help in this type of situation: they can tell you if a word has been spelled wrongly but they can’t generally flag up the misuse of a correctly spelled word.

Here’s a quick-reference list of pairs of words that regularly cause people problems. Back to Usage. You may also be interested in: 'Loose' or 'lose'? 'Pour' or 'pore'? 'Bare' or 'bear'? Grammar Girl. Commas | Punctuation Rules. Commas and periods are the most frequently used punctuation marks. Commas customarily indicate a brief pause; they're not as final as periods. Rule 1. Use commas to separate words and word groups in a simple series of three or more items. Example: My estate goes to my husband, son, daughter-in-law, and nephew. Note: When the last comma in a series comes before and or or (after daughter-in-law in the above example), it is known as the Oxford comma. Example: We had coffee, cheese and crackers and grapes.

Adding a comma after crackers makes it clear that cheese and crackers represents one dish. We had coffee, cheese and crackers, and grapes. Fiction and nonfiction books generally prefer the Oxford comma. Rule 2. Example: He is a strong, healthy man. Example: We stayed at an expensive summer resort. Another way to determine if a comma is needed is to mentally put and between the two adjectives. Rule 3a. Incorrect: He walked all the way home, he shut the door. There are several simple remedies: Usage ALUMNI.

Hello Everyone! Have you ever been confused about which word is correct when you are referring to "graduates"? When should you use ALUMNA, ALUMNAE, ALUMNUS, and ALUMNI? The misuse of these words is fairly common, but if you'll pay attention, I'll try to show you how to use them correctly so you'll never be confused again. Here are some examples of common mistakes with this problem: I am an ALUMNI of Whiteville High School...or...All of the ladies in our Sunday School class are ALUMNI of The University of North Carolina at Wilmington...or Butch is an ALUMNI of NC State University in Raleigh. Notice how the word ALUMNI is getting a good workout in the above sentences.

It seems that we tend to use ALUMNI much more frequently than any of the other three words we should be using. So what's going on here and what should we remember? Okay...Here are some simple definitions to help you keep them straight: ALUMNA is singular and simply means one female graduate. ...and finally... How about that? 1. 2. Fact Monster: Online Almanac, Dictionary, Encyclopedia, and Homework Help & FactMonster.com.