Having kids in school, you’re constantly receiving tutoring about our evolving culture. The tutor makes an observation. As a kid, I got some yearbooks, one of which I think I still have. Back then, the yearbooks had pictures, but also …
Tutoring English, vocabulary is always of interest. The tutor brings up the words occlude and occlusion. Occlude means to obstruct, so an occlusion is an obstruction. You might argue, for instance, that during an eclipse, the moon occludes light from …
Tutoring English, I’m always looking for new words. The tutor brings up notional. If a notion is an idea, then notional should relate somehow to one. In fact: notional: existing only as an idea; imaginary Notional can also describe someone …
Playing Parker Brothers’ Boggle (1976) means constant English tutoring. The tutor shares one such case. Last night, playing Boggle, my wife claimed inter. I thought it was a prefix, so not allowed. She looked it up. Of course she found …
Tutoring English, homophones continue to be a favourite topic. The tutor brings up the pair illicit and elicit. elicit (verb): to provoke a response. illicit (adj): illegal; non-permissible; purposely concealed (to avoid consequences). The difference (depending on which dictionary you …
English: homonyms (or homophones): illicit vs elicit Read more »
Tutoring English, vocabulary expansion is important. The tutor brings up the word moil. Today, during a family game of Boggle (Parker Brothers, 1976), I claimed the word moil on a hunch. It turned out, indeed, to be a word: moil …
Tutoring English, definitions are useful. The tutor distinguishes between two types of nouns. Concrete noun: a noun that can be perceived with one of the five senses. Therefore, book, thud (from something hitting the ground), aroma (as from coffee), pin-prick …
Tutoring English, this topic is a classic. The tutor recalls hearing it decades ago…. A modifier gives more meaning to its sentence, but isn’t the main idea. Some examples (with modifiers in italics): Sitting around the campfire, we noticed a …
English: dangling modifiers: what are they, and how can they be corrected? Read more »
Tutoring Business English, word processing formats inevitably arise. The tutor suggests how to change the date format in Microsoft Word 2007. I prefer the date format April 14, 2017. There’s no chance of misunderstanding it, since the month is a …
Tutoring English, different versions of familiar words are interesting. The tutor shares a find. In the context of computers, I recall reading disk. “Is it disc?” I would often wonder. Today the matter surfaced, so I looked it up. I …