It's time for the 14th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge!
My theme for the Challenge is CELEBRATE
Today I was replying to a teacher's discussion comment in an online course that I facilitate on blended learning. She had said she was going to try to concentrate on targeting only a few skills to assess in her students' writing. She was overwhelming herself and her students by grading everything. I wanted to write back, "Yes! That is so smart. It is so important in the learning process to hone in on a few targeted skills and not the whole gambit...." Then I stopped. Wait. Is that the right word? I pictured Beth Harmon and her steely gaze, daring me to make my move.
That can't be the word I want, is it? That would make no sense. I was experiencing a major verbal block. So I Googled it and figured out I needed the word GAMUT. In case you want to read all about the common (well, at least I'm thinking it's common since it came right up in my search) confusion between the two words, here's what I read. I revised my reply and chuckled. This is not the first pair of words I've confused. And yes, I was an ELA teacher and now am a literacy consultant and gifted coordinator. Ha!
My colleague, friend, and fellow co-presenter at many a literacy conference, Megan Ginther, knows that I always confuse TENET and TENEMENT. Big difference! When you Google that, TENANT and TENET comes up more often.
I texted my friends about this word confusion. One of my friends chimed in to say that CONSCIOUS and CONSCIENCE gave her trouble. Another friend recommended wordmark.it so she can see a word in every font. When she sees a page FULL of the same word/phrase, she second guesses whether or not she's spelled it right. We went briefly down a rabbit hole of discussing fonts next. She loves dafont.com for free fonts. We digress!
One other word memory came to mind. One of my daughters used to mix up idioms. It was so cute!
I love words. Even when they are confusing, they are worth celebrating!
Do you have words that often confuse you?
Holly! I don't have many words that confuse me but we are teaching my son to speak Norwegian and English... let's just say our house is full of mixing words! :)
ReplyDelete(This is Abigail Lund :) )
DeleteI am so grateful for Google these days. Whenever I am writing a new poem or blog post, there is likely a dictionary tab open. It is so fun to watch my grandsons develop vocabulary. We recently gave my son in law a fireplace tool and my grandson called it a "fireworks horn." It does look like a horn. This is Margaret (Blogger always likes to make me anonymous)
ReplyDeleteOh I love words too. I don't have many pairs of words that confuse me though I do find myself second guessing definitions and spellings much more than I used to-- double consonants at the ends of words definitely throw me.
ReplyDeleteI love learning new words and I also love learning phrases from other languages. We watch lots of Netflix series and we always watch them in their original language. (We are europhiles...is that a word?). I am currently reading Salaman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children which is daunting because it is packed with local colloquialisms. It's like being in India with Indian words from different dialects swirling around me. If you love words, it's a trip!!!
ReplyDelete