confusing English words

The difference between “peel” and “peal”

/ Erin Servais / 2 Comments

Two cartoon bananas and the words

What’s the difference between peel and peal? Peel can be used as both a noun and a verb, and peal can be used as a noun. It’s easy to get these two words confused, so read this post to learn the difference.

Definitions
peel (verb): to strip off an outer layer of
Example: Lawrence peeled the skin off of his apple.

peel (noun): the skin or rind of a fruit
Example: Becky threw her potato peels in the trash.

peal (noun): 1) the loud ringing of bells; 2) a loud sound or succession of sounds
Examples: 1) Gina heard the peal of the church bells from across town.
2) Ryan let out peals of laughter at his buddy’s lunchroom antics.

Etymology
Peel comes from the Latin word pilare, which means to remove the hair from. It came into English in the thirteenth century.

Peal is short for appeal, which in Middle English meant a summons to church service. It came into the English language in the fourteenth century.

Quiz:
Fill in the blanks with either peel or peal. The answers are below.

  1. Grace slipped on a banana _______ and broke her nose.
    2. Stan grew excited when he heard the _______ of the day’s last school bell.
    3. Grandma _______ed eight pears for the pie.
    4. ____s of loud sobs escaped from Sammy when he learned a dragon ate his cat.

 

Answers:
1. peel (noun) 2. peal 3. peel (verb) 4. peal

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How to Remember Breathe vs. Breath

/ Erin Servais / 1 Comment

breathe vs breath

Mixing up breathe and breath is a really common error. Luckily, there’s an easy way to remember the difference between the verb and the noun.

If you are doing the action (verb) of taking in and letting out air, then use breathe with an E at the end. 

If you are referring to the thing (noun) that you are taking in and letting out, use breath—no E at the end.

To remember the difference, think about the letter E at the end of breathe. Then remember that the word verb has an E, but the word noun doesn’t.

So breathe = verb.

Here are some sample sentences:

Martin was thankful he could breathe deeply when he recovered from his cold.
Francis took a deep breath before he jumped in the pool.

Quiz
Test your skills with a quiz. Fill in either breathe or breath in the blanks. The answers are at the bottom.

1. Fish ________ in water.
2. Marcy hated her boss because he had bad _______.
3. Do you think there are aliens who _______ something other than oxygen?
4. The doctors put Uncle George on a respirator because he couldn’t _______ well on his own.
5. Sally couldn’t take a good _______ because the air was filled with smoke.

Answers
1. breathe 2. breath 3. breathe 4. breathe 5. breath.

Erin Servais is the founder of Dot and Dash, LLC, an author-services company focusing on women writers and offering a range of editing, coaching, and social media packages.

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Is It Whose or Who’s?

/ Erin Servais / Leave a comment
image of owl and the words whose or who's

Whooo will know the difference between “whose” and “who’s” after reading this post? You will!

The rules of when to use whose and when to use who’s are simple, but they can be difficult to remember because they seem to violate how apostrophes usually work. Don’t worry—we’ll teach you a trick to remember the difference whose and who’s in this post.

While words ending with an apostrophe and an S (i.e., the man’s car) are usually possessive, in the case of whose vs. who’s, whose is actually the possessive form.

Whose is a possessive adjective, which means it describes who owns something.

Who’s is a contraction of either who is or who has.

How to remember the difference
A good way to tell whether you should use whose or who’s is to substitute who is or who has in their place. If the sentence makes sense with this substitution, then you should use who’s. If it doesn’t, then you should go with whose. Here are some examples:

math gif.gif

Whoa. Math.

  • “Who’s the best at math?”

This sentence uses who’s because you can substitute who is. “Who is the best at math?” still makes sense.

  • “Whose math homework is this?”

This sentence uses whose because it doesn’t make sense when you substitute who is and get “Who is math homework is this?” Whose, in this case, is asking who the math homework belongs to.

Whose vs. who’s seems complicated, but once you know the rules, it’s easy to tell when to use which. Who’s got the power to tell the difference between whose and who’s? You do!

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This post was written by Maud Grauer. She is a content creator and book editor for Dot and Dash. You can read more of her writing on the Dot and Dash blog: www.dotanddashllc.com/blog

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Peek, Peak, and Pique

/ Erin Servais / Leave a comment
image of a keyhole and the word

Peek through a keyhole; peak of a mountain; pique someone’s interest;

The words peek, peak, and pique often get confused. It’s easy to see why. For one, they’re homonyms, which means they sound alike but have different meanings. They also all can be both nouns and verbs.

To help you remember the differences between peek, peak, and pique, let’s look at their definitions and some examples. Then you can test your understanding with a quiz at the end of the post.

peek (noun) means a glance
Example: One peek at the gift table and Virginia knew which one was from her grandma.

peek (verb) means 1) to glance at something; or 2) to look out through a hiding place (such as a crack).
Examples: Virginia peeked quickly at the papers on her rival’s desk.
I discovered Virginia peeking through the crack of the door.

peak (noun) means 1) the point at the top of a hill or mountain; or 2) the highest level
Examples: It took Virginia four days to climb to the peak of the mountain.
Virginia thought her vacation had reached its peak, but then she saw a mountain lion do the foxtrot.

peak (verb) means to reach a maximum (of capacity, value, or activity)
Example: Virginia felt her life peaked when she won her eighth-grade spelling bee.

pique (noun) means resentment, a wound of pride
Example: Virginia felt pique when her best friend got a better grade than her.

pique (verb) means to excite in interest or curiosity
Example: When Virginia’s friend brought up the subject of physics, her interest piqued.

Quiz
Test your skills with this quiz. Fill in the blank with either peek, peak, or pique.

  1. Virginia reached the _______ of her high school career when she beat her math teacher at chess.
  2. Virginia had a _______ at the test before it was time to start.
  3.  “Let me _______ your curiosity,” Virgnia said as she pulled a magic box from her purse.
  4.  Virginia painted the _______ of the mountain for her art class.
  5.  Virginia _______ed, in terms of accomplishments, when she won the first prize in debate class.
  6. Virginia’s _______ was in full force when she saw her friend take the stage after her.
  7. Virginia hid behind a big rock, and then she _______ed around it.
  8. From her _______ing, Virginia knew the secret her brother hid in his closet.

1. peak (noun) 2. peek (noun) 3. pique (verb) 4. peak (noun) 5. peak (verb) 6. pique (noun) 7. peek (verb) 8. peek (noun)

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What Is the Plural of “No” and “Yes”?

/ Erin Servais / 7 Comments

What's the plural of "yes" and "no"?

Wondering how to spell the plural of no and yes? The answer may not be what you think.

The plural of no is noes.

The vote got thirteen noes.
How many noes will I get before I get a yes?
I heard noes from both candidates

The plural of yes is yeses.

The vote got thirteen yeses.
The yeses outnumbered the noes.
Three yeses later, and the idea is becoming a reality.

Note: Sometimes there is more than one correct way to spell a word. (Yes, I know. I see your jaw dropping.) This is true with yes. Merriam-Webster says you can also spell yeses as yesses and noes as nos.

Example: Yesses are often better than nos.

Apostrophes and plurals
You may see them spelled as no’s and yes’s. This is incorrect. Remember: apostrophes are almost never used to make plurals.

Erin Servais is a book editor, author coach, and founder of Dot and Dash, an author-services company. To see how she can help you with your writing project, email her at Erin@dotanddashllc.com.

 
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