-
Language tip of the week: independence
Posted by Liz Potter on July 24, 2014In this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. These tips are usually based on areas of English which learners find difficult, e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc.
This week’s language tip helps with the spelling of the noun independence:
Note that the correct spelling is independence (not ‘independance’ or ‘indipendence’):
✗ Financialindependanceimplies earing a living.
✓ Financial independence implies earning a living.The related adjective is independent (not ‘independant’):
✗ Seek
independentlegal advice before entering into an agreement.
✓ Seek independent legal advice before entering into an agreement.More language tips
Browse the list under the ‘language tips‘ tag here on the blog for more useful language tips.
Would you like to improve your vocabulary? Follow our daily tweets @MacLearnEnglish or visit our Learn English Facebook Page.
Comment Here (0)
Recent Comments
-
Posted by Stan to Could you care less? on July 24, 2014 Erik: Could care less is not valid in formal standard English, except when used ironically or jocularly, but it is valid in certain informal and colloquial varieties where people use it as the usual idiom. The same goes for ain't. There's no cause for alarm.
-
Posted by Erik Zidowecki to Could you care less? on July 24, 2014 I disagree with the argument that "I could care less" is valid simply because people use it. It is used because people are ignorant of the proper idiom. For years, English teachers have taught that using "ain't" is incorrect, despite the number of people that use it. Would you now claim that it is fine to use? I have seen people use "for all intensive purposes" instead of "for all intents and purposes" because they misheard...
-
Posted by Macmillan Dictionary to Life skills tip of the week: ways of expressing uncertainty on July 24, 2014 Hi Ana. If you go to one of the lesson plans and look at the top right hand corner you will see an arrow symbol (third from left). Clicking this will allow you to save the file to your computer.
-
Posted by Stan to Parallelism, precision, and pedantry on July 23, 2014 Thanks for bringing this research to my attention, Kim.
-
Posted by Ana to Life skills tip of the week: ways of expressing uncertainty on July 23, 2014 can you please tell me how to download all these lessons? they are fantastic but I see no way of using them in a PDF doc. or word. It would be really very helpful. Thank you in advance Ana
-
New pragmatics lesson plan: saying you are sure or unsure
Have you seen our latest lesson plan by author Jonathan Marks? This new resource is part of the ‘expressing yourself’ series and helps learners review and consolidate ways of saying you are sure or not sure. What’s included? Worksheets for students, tips for teachers, as well as an answer key and suggested follow-up activities. All […]
Read the full article -
Life skills tip of the week: saying you are sure about something
Learning about pragmatics and how to express yourself successfully is a useful life skill, said Michael Rundell in January when he introduced the new pragmatics series on Macmillan Dictionary. The series is part of the Macmillan Life Skills campaign, offering free resources for English language students and teachers each month. As part of the series, we’ll bring more useful content and […]
Read the full article -
Why heed the language cranks?
Disputes over English usage are full of familiar items. Split infinitives, sentence-final prepositions, words like [you might prefer such as] hopefully and decimate – the same issues keep showing up, despite convincing arguments that there’s seldom a problem with any of them, leaving aside the question of register. It feels as though these are battles […]
Read the full article -
Language and words in the news – 18th July, 2014
This post contains a selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English, language change, education in general, and language learning and teaching in particular. Feel free to contact us if you would like to submit a link […]
Read the full article -
Language tip of the week: risk
In this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. These tips are usually based on areas of English which learners find difficult, e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc. This week’s language tip helps with the patterns following the verb risk: The verb risk is never followed by […]
Read the full article -
What goes in the dictionary when the dictionary is online?
The familiar question of “how words get into the dictionary” is harder to answer when the dictionary is online. Printed dictionaries have limited space, so we have to be selective. This contributes to the popular view of lexicographers as “gatekeepers” – the people who decide, on behalf of the rest of the population, which words are […]
Read the full article -
Word roots and routes: dict
Next in a series of posts exploring some of the ‘roots’ and ‘routes’ of English vocabulary. Although say, tell and word are of Germanic origin, like most of the commonest English words, quite a bit of other vocabulary connected with words and with saying is derived from Latin dicere (= ‘say’). To dictate was originally […]
Read the full article -
Language and words in the news – 11th July, 2014
This post contains a selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English, language change, education in general, and language learning and teaching in particular. Feel free to contact us if you would like to submit a link […]
Read the full article -
Language tip of the week: accommodation
In this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. These tips are usually based on areas of English which learners find difficult, e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc. This week’s language tip helps with spelling the noun accommodation: The word accommodation is often spelled wrongly. It has […]
Read the full article -
Tour de Yorks
A couple of weeks ago I finally fulfilled a longstanding wish to visit Haworth parsonage, family home of the Bronte sisters. There is a striking, even surreal contrast between the plain, dark house by the churchyard where those brilliantly gifted women spent much of their short lives and the chocolate-box prettiness of the steep main […]
Read the full article -
Laying down the lie of the land
A recent comment by Isobel on my post ‘Who’s the boss of English?’ raised the vexed question of lay vs. lie. I felt this would be worth a post in its own right – not so much to lay down the law as to give the lie to the idea that it’s a simple matter […]
Read the full article -
Language and words in the news – 4th July, 2014
This post contains a selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English, language change, education in general, and language learning and teaching in particular. Feel free to contact us if you would like to submit a link […]
Read the full article