Tag Archives: diction/grammar/style/usage

Write It Right: Collateral Descendant

Posted on December 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Collateral Descendant. There can be none: a ‘collateral descendant‘ is not a descendant.

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Common Errors in English Usage: Him, Her, and He, She

Posted on December 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

From Paul Brians’ highly useful book Common Errors in English Usage, here is a worksheet on the pronouns him, her, he, and she. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of a carefully explanatory paragraph and ten modified cloze exercises. Essentially, this is a worksheet on pronouns and case, dealing with the nominative and objective cases, but not the possessive, in English pronoun declension.

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.

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Classicism

Posted on December 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Classicism (noun): A classical Greek or Roman word or idiom in English, or a term or coinage based on or similar to one from one of the classical languages; classical scholarship, mode or aesthetic ideology based on or allegedly derived from a “classic” epoch. Adjective: classical, classicistic; Noun: classicist; Verb: classicize

‘The artificial facility found vent in his renderings of the Rubaiyat. “Saprous bones,” “somatick atoms,” and aimaterose heart” seem legitimate classicisms; but “methystine lake” requires some explanation as a term for drunkenness.’ Shane Leslie, Introduction to Hadrian the Seventh”

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

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Word Root Exercise: Gon/o,

Posted on December 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Greek roots gon/o and -gony. They mean reproduction, origination, and generation. Unsurprisingly, then, you’ll find gon/o at the base of gonad. Otherwise, besides cosmogony, (and, alas, gonorrhea ) the words on this worksheet are all new to me. If the book from which they are drawn is believable, these are words that will turn up on the SAT.

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.

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Cultural Literacy: Cupid

Posted on December 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Cupid. This is a half-page worksheet with a five-sentence reading and three comprehension questions. I think this is a relatively well-balanced reading in terms of the amount of content it contains. Whether or not three comprehension questions are sufficient to understand the reading in its fullness is up to you. As this is a Microsoft Word document, you can do with it as you wish.

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.

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Minimum Wage

Posted on December 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a reading on the minimum wage and its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. In three paragraphs, this reading does an admirable job (the guys who wrote and edited the Intellectual Devotional series are clearly masters of the art) of exposing the history of the minimum wage in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s broad array of New Deal legislation, the rationale for the law, and its practical effects on American social and economic history.

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.

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Main Clause

Posted on December 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Main Clause, also principal clause. A clause in a sentence to which other clauses are subordinated, and which is not itself a subordinate clause. In a simple sentence, the main clause is the entire sentence. In a compound sentence, there is more than one main clause. Complex sentences contain a main clause and one or more subordinate clauses.”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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Verbiage (n)

Posted on December 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun verbiage . It means, for the purposes of this worksheet, “a profusion of words usually of little or obscure content.” The word might define itself, although I would argue that in our current media environment, cluttered with the detritus found on way, way too many social media sites, this is probably a word, and certainly a concept, that students should understand.

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.

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Common Errors in English Usage: Hero (n), Protagonist (n)

Posted on November 28, 2021 | Leave a comment

Once again, with material adapted from Paul Brians’ book Common Errors in English Usage, here is a worksheet on understanding the difference between a hero and a protagonist in a work of drama, fictional prose, or poetry. This is a full-page worksheet with a paragraph of reading from Professor Brians’ book followed by ten modified cloze exercises to help students distinguish these two words and the important concepts in English language arts that they represent.

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.

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Word Root Exercise: Ig, Il, In, Im, Ir

Posted on November 28, 2021 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Latin roots ig, il, in, im, ir; they mean not and without. These are though of in English language arts classes as prefixes, which they are for the purposes of this worksheet. You’ll find these root at the beginning of many high-frequency words in English adjectives in English such as ignorant and illegal. And while words like illegible, immutable, incongruous, and irrefutable (all present in this document) are less frequently used in common discourse, they are quite useful in academic prose.

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.

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