To accept is to receive, and except is to exclude, usually. Both are busy little words skipping around to different meanings, but they never run into each other.Continue reading...
Although these three often show up at the same party, giving hugs, they're not the same, thank you very much. To assure is to tell someone everything's ok, to ensure is to make certain, and to insure is to protect financially. Have it straight now? Are you sure?Continue reading...
Discreet means on the down low, under the radar, careful, but discrete means individual or detached. They come from the same ultimate source, the Latin discrētus, for separated or distinct, but discreet has taken its own advice and quietly gone its separate way.Continue reading...
Something expedient is helpful to you. If you vote your friend in for student body president just because you know she'll hook you up — that's an expedient choice. But expeditious is speedy, like your expeditious exit from the school cafeteria after you spilled spaghetti and meatballs all over your shirt.Continue reading...
To discomfit is to embarrass someone. Say it with a Southern accent while sipping sweet tea. Discomfort is a noun meaning uncomfortable, like the feeling you get when you realize you put salt instead of sugar in Mama's tea.Continue reading...
Both afflict and inflict cause pain, but afflict means to cause suffering or unhappiness, something a disease does, but inflict means to force pain or suffering, like if you smack someone upside the head.Continue reading...