3 Word Lists for August This month we looked at Words ending in ‘er’, Eponymous Words, and, in celebration of National Honey Bee Day, Insects. There are lots of different ways you can use a Spellzone word list to help you practise your spelling – learn more about them here. Commonly Confused Words: Shore vs. Sure For this month’s Commonly Confused Words blog post, we looked at the words shore and sure. Do you know which word refers to certainty? What about the seaside? Click here for tips and tricks to help you tell them apart. 10 Words for … SAD In our ...
Our Word for Wednesday theme for August is eponymous words. An eponymous word is a word that is named after a person or fictional character. These people or characters are known as eponyms and examples include the Earl of Sandwich (sandwiches), the Duke of Wellington (wellington boots), and Don Quixote (quixotic). Over the last few weeks, we’ve looked at the words August, hoover, and echo. Our final word for the month is cardigan. A cardigan is a knitted jacket that is fastened up the front with buttons or a zip. The word dates to 1868 and is named for James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, who supposedly wore such...
Our Word for Wednesday theme for August is eponymous words. An eponymous word is a word that is named after a person or fictional character. These people or characters are known as eponyms and examples include the Earl of Sandwich (sandwiches), the Duke of Wellington (wellington boots), and Don Quixote (quixotic). Eponym comes from the Greek epi- meaning ‘upon’ or ‘called after’ and the Aeolic dialect -onyma meaning ‘name’. ‘Onyma’ comes from the PIE root ‘no-men’ meaning ‘name’. So far we’ve looked at the words August and hoover. This...
Our Word for Wednesday theme for August is eponymous words. An eponymous word is a word that is named after a person or fictional character. These people or characters are known as eponyms and examples include the Earl of Sandwich (sandwiches), the Duke of Wellington (wellington boots), and Don Quixote (quixotic). Eponym comes from the Greek epi- meaning ‘upon’ or ‘called after’ and the Aeolic dialect -onyma meaning ‘name’. ‘Onyma’ comes from the PIE root ‘no-men’ meaning ‘name’. Last week we looked at the word August and this week’s e...
Did you know there are over a million word lists on Spellzone? Every word list can be used in a variety of online and offline activities – learn more about them here. Here are 3 Word Lists for August: Words ending in er In this month’s spelling pattern word list, you can practise words ending in /er/. The letters ‘er’ are the most common way to spell the /er/ sound at the end of the word. Learn about /er/ word endings in Unit 25 and practise spelling them in this word list. Eponymous Words Did you know the month of August was named after a Roman emperor? An eponymous word is a word that is name...
While you can sometimes get away without using capital letters in informal writing (like emails or text messages), it is important to learn how to use them correctly for formal writing (like essays and business correspondence). You should always use a capital letter in the following four situations: At the beginning of a sentence. Always start a sentence with a capital letter – this is probably one of the first writing rules you ever learned. For example: The fair came to town on a sunny Saturday. I wanted to ride on the carousel, but Mark wanted to play the games. When you are formally quoting someone or writing speech, you should use a capital letter aft...
In British English, the word ‘hoover’ is commonly used to refer to all vacuum cleaners and also the process of vacuuming. It is one of many cases where a brand dominates an industry to the extent that its name becomes synonymous with the product or service it provides – in American English, for example, ‘Kleenex’ is used to refer to a ‘tissue’, or ‘Band Aid’ is used to refer to a ‘plaster’ and, worldwide, ‘Googling’ often means ‘internet searching’ even when a search engine other than Google is being used. While these examples are not namesakes, the Hoover Company was in fact named after its found...
From sandwiches to wellington boots to the Nobel Prize, many words take their names from people or fictional characters, and these people and characters are known as eponyms. You might remember some examples of these eponymous figures from our past posts, such as Don Quixote and Mrs Malaprop from our ‘Words from Literature’ series, or Julius and Augustus Caesar from our post on where the months of the year originate from. Today we’ll take a look at five words which derive from the names of people or characters – perhaps one or two of them will surprise you! Adam’s Apple There are two theories as to why this feature of the human neck (the laryngeal promi...
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