[Editor's note: There's always at least one joker as shown by the first reader/writer].
- The principal reason for this discussion is to decrease one’s spelunking spills.
- Some of us should live by no particular moral principles; I live by the immoral Principal Corruthers.
- The principal character in the play is ill.
- His political principles are not acceptable.
- As a matter of principle, he refused to borrow money from anyone over three meters tall who fancied avocados.
- The principal invested in that project was $100, 000, 000, 000.
- We must install computer chips into the hypothalamusi of our youth which will instill principles of honesty and morality and the urge to vote Republican.
I hope that my cooperation will be of help. I can't wait to read what this is all about . . . and to hear from you regarding how I scored.
I know I don't have to make any comments but I have to say that this was a real eye opener. I felt as if I was back in school.
Just wanted to add a note of thanks. I've really been enjoying your messages.
Many thanks for your efforts. I just wanted to let you know I always look forward to your newsletters.
It might be of interest for the purposes of your survey that I am not, in fact, a native English speaker; my mother tongue is German.
[Ed. note: All of your answers were correct].
I learned these differences in 5th grade! - The princiPAL of the school is our PAL - he's a number-one (principal) guy; I'll admit cheating on number 6 - I've probably spelt it wrong all my life!
"The principal 'pal' of the principal . . ." came in useful.
Bravo for tackling this one. Why not try "lay" and "lie"; my students love to confuse those two, also. And believe it or not, they mix up the plurals of "this" and "that".
Are you trying to make a point about our country's lack of principles?
Interesting examples. Using one word or the other changes the meaning of the sentences in interesting ways. But I guess "principle" can,t be used as an adjective?
After the quiz, I checked the dictionary on my PC, and I was in for a rude awakening. I certainly have a better understanding of the two words, because I did not realize that principal had a monetary meaning. I'll not forget the definition anytime soon.
This is a good idea. I look forward to learning the results. I suggest you test us with "affect/effect" and "stationary/stationery." Others, doubtless, would be useful, but none comes to mind. On another topic, how about a test for subject/verb agreement, like "none-is/none-are" or "data-is/data-are"?
I just mentally replaced "principal" with "main" and "principle" with "scruples" and made my choices based on that. I paused on #6, but I stayed with the same definitions, because you have the "main" money (principal) and the interest, which is earned from it.
After looking at these sentences, I can easily see that many folks could be quite confused. It was a fun mental workout.
Thank you very much for allowing me to join your Focusing on Words Newsletter. I am Japanese. I am trying to learn English.
[Editor: When asked what system this subscriber used to choose the right "princip-", his response was as follows]
I don't think it qualifies as a system, but here's my thought process: I know that one of the words refers to abstract decision-making guidelines for things like morals, ethics, professional decisions, etc., and I know that that word isn't "principal" because Principal was the sign on the office door of the guy who ran my grade school, and I remember walking past that sign in the first grade and thinking "He's no pal of mine."
The logic doesn't track, but I walk through this little personal memory each time I have to distinguish between these two words, and it seems to get me to the right answer.
I rely on an obscure personal memory to determine that "principal" does not refer to abstract values and decision-making guidelines. If "principal" doesn't refer to them, then "principle" does.
Hope this helps.
I used the word principle anytime it was talking about one's moral belief system. Principles are beliefs or values. I used the word principal meaning the central or main thing. Also, principal means an amount of money.
I teach 6th grade language arts and math. My boss is a principal with few principles.
The oldest trick in the book. My high school principal, who is the main person in the school, is my pal. Works for nouns and works for adjectives. The only one I wasn't sure of was principle/principal meaning money in the bank. I made a good guess (or inference.)
I mentioned this earlier but my letter apparently went into hyperorbit. The phrases involving two and tandem are not pleonasms. Tandem hitching simply requires that the hitching of a team be linear, one behind another. Any number of individuals can constitute the tandem team.
A replacement pleonasm could be the “three-horse troika.” A troika is three horses, hitched abreast, to a conveyance.
For the history [of discipline and punishment], I found the following on www.m-w.com:
Discipline Etymology: Middle English, from Old French & Latin; Old French, from Latin disciplina, teaching, learning, from discipulus, pupil.
Punish Etymology: Middle English, punisshen, from Middle French, puniss-, stem of punir, from Latin punire, from poena, penalty —
My interpretation is that discipline is an inflexible teaching. Punishment can be a tool to achieve discipline, but reward is another tool. Moreover, crime punishment (for example) can be hardly related with discipline.
I am very delighted with the newsletter. I agree that the female version of an android would be gynoid or something in that area. I have recently learned the Ancient Greek word for woman: gune, gunaikos. So in English that would transliterate into gyna-.
I was wondering how I can get my comments to appear on the newsletter. I truly love the classic languages and anxious to participate.
Si bene valet, valeo.
Discipline is derived from the Latin word discere which means to learn. Discipline is related to the concept of moral or physical training often involving hard work and hard knocks as we say “I went to the school of hard knocks.” We learn from the mistakes we make (except for those of us with hard heads!).
Discipline can be imposed by others or we can be self-disciplined. We learn discipline (self-control) through the lessons of life.
Many times, when we behave in an undisciplined matter we can incur a consequence which is like a penalty or punishment.
Penalties for our behavior can be a natural result of our actions or given to us by our authority.
Punishment comes from two Latin words; the Latin verb punire (poenio) which means to punish or penalize and the Latin noun poenia = a penalty/punishment. It is the idea of paying for the wrong that was done. Hence the Latin idiom poenas dare, "to pay the penalty".
Punishment is related to discipline but not synonymous.
As language evolves, related terms are sometimes used interchangeably as are discipline and punishment. However, I believe it is best to clearly distinguish between these two terms as your text book is doing. Looking at the phrases below, which communicates more clearly?
I am being punished. [I am experiencing a penalty] I am being disciplined. [Am I behaving in a disciplined manner or being punished?]
He endured the discipline. [Did he endure rigorous training or a punishment?] He endured the punishment. [He endured a penalty].
For what it's worth,
Just wanted to say thank you for a wonderful and educational site on the WWW. I work with a lot of people from other countries who, have asked me to help them learn the English language. This site has been extremely helpful to me.
With all of the slang that is used, it is hard to understand, some of which I was not aware of, that I have been using (like "what's up" a man from Ethiopia said to me what is the meaning of this Laura? What do they mean what is up? The sky is up, I laughed and explained).
Anyway, thanks for teaching me as well and others. Bless you for the effort you put forth!
Gee, I really like this site. I prepare prison inmates to pass the GED exam. I really like my work and am planning on presenting a 40-minute talk with handouts about the value of improving vocabulary. This will be in March at the Missouri Department of Corrections Education Conference.
I should have two sessions, with about thirty to forty participants each. The title of my little dittie is: "Don't Be a Brain Robber, Be a Brain Builder!" Catchie-huh?
Now, I would like to know if I may use some of the material from this site and if you have some references or pearls of wisdom to suggest. I really would appreciate hearing them.
By the way, in the field of literacy and emerging language skills, the area of corrections is doing a big job of stressing the importance of getting a GED. If an inmate wants a job above $7.50 a month, he has to have a diploma!
Sometime in the next two years, an inmate will also need a GED to get a parole date! So far I have enjoyed my inmate students. They are so interesting, and surprisingly, they are open to using dictionaries and improving their vocabulary. Thanks for listening.
Thank you for the welcome; what fun to find your page. As a retired teacher of Humanities, I applaud the writer's efforts to present accurate information to her class. I'm sure she is an excellent teacher. I also admire your effort in trying to focus on Latin and Greek derivatives, and I'll be interested to see if you can pull it off.
Having done no research on either punishment or discipline, I don't have any answers, but here are a few ideas I'll S.W.A.G.
First, punishment and discipline are Latin derivatives but with radically different stems. The text is right to make a difference between them. The Latins and Greeks were clear thinkers and, therefore, meant exactly what they said.
When they used "punishment," they meant a condition of causing pain or suffering; when they used "discipline," they meant instruction and/or education. Punishment and discipline may be used together. That is, one may cause pain or suffering (emotional, not necessarily physical), but that is largely ineffective without discipline.
"Don't hit your sister with your fist, you'll break your knuckles" is more effective than "Don't hit your sister with your fist, because if you do, I"ll hit you." ;-)
So, discipline takes punishment one step further; it provides instruction as to the way of the world. Experiments in child psychology appear to provide evidence showing that babies only two or three months old have a sense of how the physical world works. The essence of punishment is unpredictability. The two words probably became synonymous in the vernacular through sloppy thinking.
Good luck with your project.
Any idea who came up with this ridiculous sesquipedalian monstrosity [floccinaucinihilipilification]? I forgot the definition.
Your newsletter is great by the way.
Ok, is there a precise word for the act of "counting sheep" other than the inaccurate "insomnia"? If not, can we offer a neologism, a hybrid word combining sheep and sleep . . . Ewesomia? But that isn't pc, is it? Ewes it or lose it . . . . (to sheep perchance to dream?)
I checked Nelson's Expository Dictionary of the Old Testament in which the word for "flock, sheep, goats"; is tso’n or "small cattle". "Tso’nia?" "Tso’nasomia"? I don't know, this sounds strange . . . .
What about the "counting" part of "counting sheep"? The same Hebraic dictionary defines "count"; as saphar, meaning "to number, count, proclaim or declare".
So counting sheep could be combined into "Saphartsonia"?
But what about the "sleep" connection? This is rambling, perhaps you could offer a Latin-Greek variant . . . thanks.
If you read “Newsletter #5”, you know that there was an extensive discussion about the important field of “tribology”. Geoff, in the United Kingdom, sent me information that led to the following internet article about a “TRIBOPEN (tribo + pen)” a Plastic Identifier:
“The automotive industry has moved a step closer to maximum car recyclability following the development of two innovative plastic identifiers by Ford Motor Company and Southampton University.
“The biggest problem when recycling plastics is the sorting and grouping according to material type,” said Professor Walter Brandstetter, Director of Environment and Safety, Ford of Europe.
“Although many plastics look alike, just one percent of an incompatible plastic can be enough to ruin an entire batch of recyclate.”
The Spectrometer unit is the larger of the two. When its nozzle is placed against the plastic part in question, it will identify the exact type of plastic from which it was made. The unit compares the spectroscopic fingerprint with its own integrated database, which consists of more than 200 types of plastic.
The second, pen-shaped hand-held unit, known as the Tribopen, works on the basis of tribo-electric charges that occur when a metal or plastic surface is rubbed against the part. A wide range of different heads are available to cover all possible plastics, from car bumpers to cable shrouding. The portable Tribopen has been designed predominantly for use by dismantlers and recyclers.
Based on information from the University of Southampton with reference to Wolfson Electrostatics.
Since so many subscribers are from non-English speaking countries, the following may answer a question that has puzzled so many, including a few “native speakers”. Nichola of France, wrote:
“A Turkish friend of mine asked if I knew why English is one of the few languages of the world where ‘I’ is always capitalised. ”
Other than making it stand out in a sentence I couldn’t give him a satisfactory answer, could you help, is it based on historical use?"
Scribe answers:
Well, Nichola, and anyone else who is interested, William and Mary Morris, in their Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage explain:
“English is one of the few languages in which the pronoun for the first person, singular, is capitalized. For example, the French ‘je’ and the Spanish ‘yo’ are not capitalized unless they are the beginning of a sentence.
“This has nothing to do with egotism on the part of English-speaking people. Printing and handwriting have everything to do with it. In Middle English the first person singular was ‘ich’ with a lower-case ‘i.’ When this was shortened to ‘i,’ manuscript writers and printers found that it often became lost or attached to a neighboring word. So the reason for the capital ‘I’ is simply to avoid confusion and error.”
Scribe’s note: I would like to add that in English, the first person, “I” (referring to the person who is writing or who is quoted as the speaker), should always be capitalized, whether it is the first letter of a sentence or anywhere within the sentence.