Monthly Archives: April 2022

Common Errors in English Usage: If (conj), Whether (conj)

Here is a worksheet on the use of the conjunctions if and whether in both casual speech and formal prose. The distinction, as Professor Paul Brians points out (this and all other materials under the heading above are based on his book Common Errors in English Usage, to which he allows access at no charge at the Washington State University website) is stylistic. Anyway, this is a full-page worksheet with ten sentences for analysis.

But, like practically everything on this blog, this document is formatted in Microsoft Word. You can do what you want with it–it is, as I believe the term of art has it, open source.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Figurative

“Figurative (adjective): Characterized by or using figures of speech, and hence having meaning beyond the explicit or literal; rhetorical or metaphorical; imaginative or ornate in language; elaborately expressed. Adverb: figuratively; noun: figurativeness.

‘The metonymy red tape for the routine of bureaucracy, synecdoche mercury for thermometer, the antithesis Man proposes and God disposes, the famous Dickens syllepsis (used preferably for humor only) Miss Bolo went home in a flood of tears and a sedan chair…, the allusion He is the Croesus of the community, the analogy Chemical elements are to compounds as letters are to words, and the editor’s innuendo Flames, James, written to an assistant named James, on the margin of a contribution with the request that it be printed entire or consigned to the flames—all are illustrative of the possibilities of figurative language in the cause of economy.’ John B. Opdyke, Say What You Mean”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

Age (n)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun age. These sentences provide clues to the meaning of this noun as “a period of time dominated by a central figure or prominent feature.” This use of age is similar to the nouns era (“a period identified by some prominent figure or characteristic feature”) and epoch (“an extended period of time usually characterized by a distinctive development or by a memorable series of events”).

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

The Devil’s Dictionary: Adolescent

“Adolescent, n. Recovering from boyhood.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

The Weekly Text, 1 April 2022: A Lesson Plan on the Crime and Puzzlement Case “Spelling Bee”

On this April Fool’s Day, this week’s Text is a lesson plan on the Crime and Puzzlement case “Spelling Bee.”

I open this lesson with this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the rhetorical question (it’s a reading of one compound sentence that nonetheless yields three comprehension questions). You’ll need this PDF of the illustration of the crime scene with its attendant investigatory questions. Finally, you’ll want this typescript of the answer key to arrest the offender and bring him or her to the bar of justice.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.