Greetings,

This week it's time to look at some of those words which are often confused and which can make the user look a right dill!

Have you ever read an ad for a chair that will "compliment" your decor? Do you have visions of the chair wandering around the room saying, "What a lovely vase ... this is a delightful painting ... love the colour..."?

Perhaps if the ad read that the chair would be a "complement" to the decor, you'd feel less like you'd entered a Loony Tunes set.

"Compliment" means a polite expression of praise, whereas a "complement" is something which completes something else.

Another pair of words often used incorrectly is "border" and "boarder." Having spent many years teaching in a boarding school, I'm always amused when I see statements like this: "The troops attacked the boarders." (Many's the time on a Friday afternoon when I could have done with some of these troops!)

A "border" is a boundary between two or more territories; a "boarder" is one of those children who lives at school during term time. (Yes, I know there are other types of boarders ... but school boarders are forever a part of my psyche!)

One of the most commonly misused pairs is "loose" and "lose."

Do these look familiar? "There's no time to loose." "Do not loose this docket."

It seems that "loose" is everyone's favourite and no-one like to use "lose." "Loose" is an adjective - it describes a noun (or pronoun) and means 'not attached, released from bonds or restraint' e.g. a loose connection.

"Lose" is a verb - it means to misplace something e.g. "There's no time to lose." "Do not lose this docket."

Another pair that always leaps off the page and slaps me in the face is "hanged" and "hung." Let's settle this once and for all: you hang a picture on the wall, stand back and admire the way it's been hung; you put your washing on the line and it starts to rain as soon as it's been hung; then you hear on the news that the convicted murderer has been hung. Right?

Wrong ... wrong, wrong wrong!

Paintings, clothes, wallpaper etc are hung, but people sentenced to hang by the neck until dead, are hanged (regardless of our personal opinions on capital punishment).

Pair these words with a synonym in the list below:

Poignant, enigmatic, pernicious, emancipation, derogatory, reticent, impecunious, circumspect, insidious, vehement

1. passionate

2. cautious

3. painful

4. puzzling

5. treacherous

6. liberation

7. disparaging

8. taciturn

9. poor

10.harmful

For each of the following expressions, substitute one word - it must end in -ent.

e.g. a piece broken off - FRAGMENT

1. a state of being satisfied - SATIENT

2. to think out something new - INVENT

3. a suite of rooms forming a complete dwelling - APARTMENT

4. working with care and not wasting time - DILIGENT

5. an expression of praise - COMPLIMENT

6. a putting off to another time - POSTPONEMENT

7. ready to happen - IMMINENT

8. having power over all - OMNIPOTENT

9. not relying on anyone else - INDEPENDENT

10.lofty and important - EMINENT

'A Wunch of Bankers' and advises, "Think about it!"

Chuckle ... I don't know if banks are doing the same in other parts of the world as they're doing here ... but, this works for me!

Press release = childbirth
Microprocessor = someone who sues for a trifle
Cache memory = a letter reminding you of outstanding debts

If you have any language related items like these, please send them in so we can all enjoy them.

Leo, as you know, regularly sends in little gems, like the music answers below. He comes from, "The Pacific Northwest part of the US. Washington state... the big Washington... not the puny little Washington DC back East where all the politicians hang out."

Here are some actual answers from students' music exams:


The principal singer of nineteenth century opera was called a pre-Madonna.

It is easy to teach anyone to play the maracas. Just grip the neck and shake him in rhythm.

Gregorian chant has no music, just singers singing the same lines.

Sherbet composed the Unfinished Symphony.

All female parts were sung by castrati. We don't know exactly what they sounded like because there are no known descendants.

Young scholars have expressed their rapture for the Bronze Lullaby, the Taco Bell Cannon, Beethoven's Erotica, Tchaikovsky's Cracknutter Suite, and Gershwin's Rap City in Blue.

Music sung by two people at the same time is called a duel; if they sing without music it is called Acapulco.

A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals.

Contralto is a low sort of music that only ladies sing.

Diatonic is a low calorie Schweppes.

Probably the most marvelous fugue was the one between the Hatfields and the McCoys.

A harp is a nude piano.

The main trouble with a French Horn is that it is too tangled up.

An interval in music is the distance from one piano to the next.

The correct way to find the key to a piece of music is to use a pitchfork.

Agitato is a state of mind when one's finger slips in the middle of playing a piece.

Refrain means don't do it. A refrain in music is the part you'd better not try to sing.

I know what a sextet is but I'd rather not say.

Most authorities agree that music of antiquity was written long ago.

My favorite composer was Opus. Agnus Dei was a woman composer famous for her church music.

Henry Purcell was a well-known composer few people have ever heard of.

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic.

Rock Monanoff was a famous post-romantic composer of piano concerti.

This week's Latin phrase continues our musical theme - here are some of your favourite groups:

Cimictus (The Beatles) Inlecebrae (The Temptations) Lapides Provolventes (The Rolling Stones)

A little test for you - you've been absorbing the Latin language for some time now, see if you can work out the following groups:

Just think of other English words that are similar to the Latin and go from there ... don't use a Latin dictionary, try to work it out - it's fun :)

Send me your answers, the first correct answer received will win ... um ... something ... How about an ad in the Advertising Tips newsletter or free editing of your home page or a one page document? (Yes, I know - generous to a fault, that's me ...)

Regards,

Jennifer

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