Thursday, July 24, 2008

"Principal" and "Principle"

Levels of Distractibility: Who cares? = *. Some people will be distracted from your meaning: = **. Many people will be distracted from your meaning: = ***.

Question: How do you differentiate "principal" and "principle"?

Answer: The best solution I ever found was in Harry Shefter's Six Minutes A Day to Perfect Spelling. "Principal": "The princiPAL is my PAL." The head of a school, that is. "PrincipAl" = mAin. "Spend the interest, but don't touch the principAl," that is, the original investment. OR, "That was the principAl (or mAin) reason we lost the game."

"PrincipLE," according to Shefter, can be remembered by relating it to "ruLE." "The Ten Commandments are the principLEs (or ruLEs) by which I live."

Rating of Distraction: ***. You don't ever want to make that mistake.

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