Transcript More on Homonyms and Capital Letters

Chapters Thirty-One
and Thirty-Two
More on Homonyms
and Capital Letters
English Essentials
John Langan
Beth Johnson
English Essentials
©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Homonyms and Capital Letters
2
Confusing Word Pairs
Certain pairs of words are easily confused.
Homonyms, for example, (words that sound alike but
have different meanings), canlead/led
be tricky:tail/tale
BE CAREFUL WHEN
principal/principle
all ready/already
USING THESE WORDS!!!
air/heir
pair/pear
Other words are just difficult to tell apart and use correctly:
among/between
accept/except quiet/quit/quite
loose/lose
desert/dessert
advice/advise
were/where
English Essentials
©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Homonyms and Capital Letters
3
Inflated Language
Also be wary of using fancy words and phrases.
Try to keep your writing SIMPLE and DIRECT.
The patrolman could not ascertain when the
deviant had embarked upon his flight from the
victim’s home.
Better:
The police officer couldn’t tell when the robber had
left the scene of the crime.
English Essentials
©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Homonyms and Capital Letters
4
Capital Letters
There are many uses
of
Let’s take a look at
some. . . .
English Essentials
©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Homonyms and Capital Letters
5
Capital Letter Use
CAPITALIZE…
Names of Geographical
Places:
I want to see the Grand
Canyon.
Let’s vacation in Maine!
English Essentials
©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Homonyms and Capital Letters
6
Capital Letter Use
CAPITALIZE…
Historical periods and
well-known events
The Renaissance
occurred after the
Middle Ages.
English Essentials
©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Homonyms and Capital Letters
7
Capital Letter Use
CAPITALIZE…
All words in the
opening of a letter,
and the first word
in the closing.
My Dear Edna,
Your friend,
Joan
English Essentials
©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Homonyms and Capital Letters
8
Capital Letter Use
CAPITALIZE…
Common abbreviations
composed of the first
letters of the words they
represent.
The FBI wrote a letter to
the CIA about the UFO
NBC reported.
English Essentials
©2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.