MineralMan's Visual Guide to Commonly Misspelled Words: Issue 7

[MineralMan]

On principle, proper spelling is important in communication between people. The principal reason for this is that many words that are homophones are easily confused in spelling, and a misspelling can easily confuse the reader. For Issue 7 of this visual guide, I've chosen principal and principle as the pair of homophones to clarify. It's pretty easy really, to handle this pair.

Principle

If the thing you're discussing is not fundamental fact, a logical truth, a rule, a tenet, or a strongly-held belief, it will not be spelled principle. Here are some common examples of principles:

Archimedes' Principle is illustrated below:



The tablets below represent the principles of the Judeo-Christian Religion



The Founders had these principles in mind:



Principal

All other uses of this homophone pair require the spelling: Principal. Examples include:

If you misbehave in school, you may face the Principal


Principal can also mean primary or main, when used as an adjective:


If you have a mortgage on your home, the proportions of principal and interest in each payment change over time:



The principal player of an instrument in a band or orchestra plays a prominent role in each section:



Here are the previous issues in reverse order
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1487899
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1481954
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1481631
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1481332
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1480103
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1479832

[madinmaryland]

1. The link to the founder's principles is broken. nt

[MineralMan]

3. Thank you. I have replaced the link.

[gkhouston]

29. Yeah, the Supreme Court can't seem to find 'em, either. n/t

[MineralMan]

30. Well, the Supreme Court isn't bound by the Declaration of

Independence. They don't seem bound to the Constitution much, either, of course, but that's another topic.

[gkhouston]

32. True to both. The Declaration isn't a legal document as such, but

it does express the mindset of the founders (or at least their PR) and as such, has weight.

[surrealAmerican]

36. That's only because they're not looking for them.

[checks-n-balances]

2. Thanks again, MineralMan

Let grammarians everywhere salute your efforts!!

[SpiralHawk]

4. Thow shalt not have no speling mustakes before thee

or thow wilt encownter thee rath of minnie man.

[PoliticAverse]

5. Remember, The Pinicipal is your Pal. n/t

[MineralMan]

9. A very good mnemonic. 10 points to your house for being

the first to quote it. My Principal in 5th grade must have been a really good PAL, since I spent so much time in his office. :rofl:

[elocs]

38. Hey, I mentioned that yesterday in issue 6:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1487899&mesg_id=1488107

[MineralMan]

40. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

I'm not smart enough to work on more than one thread at a time. :rofl:

[Pholus]

6. The only proper response to such an overwrought series is to quote some Feynman.

"If the professors of English will complain to me that the students who come to the universities, after all those years of study, still cannot spell 'friend', I say to them that something's the matter with the way you spell 'friend'."

- Richard Feynman 1963

Edit: Added this:

:)

so you can tell it's a joke.... ;)

[MineralMan]

10. An excellent quote!

Thanks for sharing it. That's the first time I've seen it.

[Pholus]

11. Every time I see something about spelling I can't help but think about notational convention...

hence Feynman.

Edit: I wonder how he'd have felt about two n's on his name... ;)

[MineralMan]

13. Yes. I once hired a guy to do some coding on a couple of

applications I was working on. He lasted one day. He spent far too much time fixing his typos before he could get his routines to run. Spelling is important. There's nothing like working in a computer programming language to make that truth evident.

[Pholus]

15. We used to joke about "boss fingers" which is the propensity of a person to make more

typos when the boss is hovering over them too much. ;)

[Scuba]

17. Why does my computer keep doing what I tell it to do instead of what I want it to do?....

Spelling.

[Pholus]

18. My computer constantly tries to correct my spelling and capitalization for me. Drives me nuts.

They do need "DWIM" buttons (Do what I mean)....

[gkhouston]

31. If it's happening in an app like Word, you can usually turn it off.

I always disable the autocorrect feature; I find it distracting and unhelpful.

[Ian David]

7. Your school principal is your PAL. n/t

[MineralMan]

14. I had to award the prize to the house of the person who

posted that first, I'm afraid, but thanks for reminding us of that nice mnemonic.

[hifiguy]

8. I am so enjoying this series, MineralMan

For those of us who dote on the written word it is always good to be reminded of little things like these.

And clearly some people are severely humor impaired.

[MineralMan]

12. Thank you. I'm not paying any attention to the humorless.

The nice comments like yours are much more to the point of my intentions.

[Scuba]

16. More please.

[Gin]

21. these 2 words are easy for me....the affect vs effect not so much.

thanks for the lessons MM.

[MineralMan]

23. Thanks! Yes, this pair is easy. But, they're often confused.

The meanings make it simple, but I don't think meanings of words are taught too much these days and connected to the spelling. New principles of education are focused on other priorities today. More's the pity, I think.

[inna]

19. well worth a rec.

(mine didn't register, btw. :shrug: )

[MineralMan]

22. No matter that the recs aren't registering.

Truly, it does not matter at all. Thanks for your comment!

[LuvNewcastle]

20. I've enjoyed your recent posts

about word usage. I used to subscribe to an etymology website with weekly columns, but it had to shut down due to lack of funds. I would really enjoy it if DU had an etymology/grammar group where anyone could submit posts like this one.

[MineralMan]

24. Thanks. I can't imagine why an etymology website would

have trouble raising money. It must be the economy. :shrug:

[LuvNewcastle]

26. lol

It was a very well-written and informative site, the administrators just couldn't afford to donate all the time required to run it. Here's a link to it: http://www.takeourword.com/ I think they might have some old issues there. I highly recommend reading them.

[MineralMan]

28. I'll check it out. I love etymology.

I'm very strange.

[LiberalAndProud]

25. "You are not the boss of my words, Grace."

"This is a freed country. And if I want to say valentime, I can. And I will not even go to jail."

-Junie B. Jones

[MineralMan]

27. Had to look that one up. No kids in my house.

Pretty funny stuff, though.

[LiberalAndProud]

42. "I wish valentime had an m in it. But it doesn't, does it?"

After that, me and that Grace made squinty eyes at each other. Plus also we crossed our arms. And we tapped our angry feet.
Only pretty soon we got tired of that. 'Cause fighting with your friends is not that fun.

That's how come both of us hugged each other. And we said a 'pology.


I don't know why this made me think of DU, but it did.

[eppur_se_muova]

33. Principal ALWAYS means something like "foremost" --

principal (adj.)
late 13c., from O.Fr. principal (11c.), from L. principalis "first in importance," from princeps (see prince). The noun is c.1300 in the sense of "ruler;" mid-14c. in the sense of "money on which interest is paid;" 1827 as "person in charge of a public school," though meaning "head of a college or hall" was in English from mid-15c., and the basic sense of "chief, commander, ruler" is recorded from late 14c.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=principal

[MineralMan]

39. Yup. And Principle always refers to some rule or similar thing.

The two should be easy to separate, but they're obviously not, based on what I've seen.

[swilton]

34. Very Helpful

Remember the principles of spelling that I learned in grade school - The principal is your 'pal'.....But it is still challenging to get my spelling correct.

[janet118]

35. Working in a law office, I use this word a great deal . . .

Mostly "principal" - which the lawyers misspell/use at least half the time. I try to get them to remember that if it's an adjective - it's principal. And if it's a noun, unless it's the head of a school or referring to a financial statement, it's principle. (An exception might be "principled position," but we rarely use that phrase here.) Then, of course, I have to explain what a noun and an adjective are. {{{sigh}}}

[MineralMan]

37. Lots of people appear to confuse these two words.

Even on a Google search, you'll find many websites that confuse the words, leading to incorrect results for searches. You'd think this one would be easy, but it's not, apparently.

[Robb]

41. "... Then, of course, I have to explain what a noun and an adjective are."

:rofl:

[Sal Minella]

44. Tain't funny, McGee . . . . n/t

[Karenina]

43. . .

[MagickMuffin]

45. Another suggestion: Sense, Since, Cents

These should be easy to make a visual presentation.


I'm glad you're doing these. They can be very helpful.