Mnemonic Devices for Easily Confused Words

arthwollipot said:
I would have at least as much trouble remembering that apparently random, disconnected sequence of words as I would remembering the actual words.
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I remember it clearly just from being exposed to my dad's medical school studies as a kid. There are countless variations of it, you just pick the one that resonates for you, and then it cues you to the order of the cranial nerves. When you're doing gross anatomy and need to learn every bone, muscle, nerve, blood vessel and ligament (etc.) in the body, a few memory tricks like that can be invaluable for recall.
 
deadrose said:
I remember it clearly just from being exposed to my dad's medical school studies as a kid. There are countless variations of it, you just pick the one that resonates for you, and then it cues you to the order of the cranial nerves. When you're doing gross anatomy and need to learn every bone, muscle, nerve, blood vessel and ligament (etc.) in the body, a few memory tricks like that can be invaluable for recall.
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Yes, I can imagine. But from what I've found - and I'm far from an anatomy expert - most of the words for bits of the body have Latin or Greek roots, and remembering those roots helps me to remember the names of the bits themselves. Different people will of course vary.
 
Delvo said:
Following etymology reduces the number of words you need to learn while increasing the number of occurrences you experience with each one. That's making less of a demand on your linguistic abilities, not more.
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I'm not sure that's actually true. Etymology clicks for me in a big way. I don't think everyone learns and retains information the way I do, though.
 
Delvo said:
Following etymology reduces the number of words you need to learn while increasing the number of occurrences you experience with each one. That's making less of a demand on your linguistic abilities, not more.
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arthwollipot said:
Etymology is just really goddamn fascinating anyway. Especially English etymology. The number and variety of sources for our modern words is amazing.
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Yeah, I just LOVE learning about bugs!
 
I love etymology, too. Not just the usefulness of Greek and Latin roots, which I've picked up both medically and botanically, but following words around through the whole Indo-European language tree (as beautifully illustrated here). The fact that English mugs other languages in back alleys to steal their words just makes it more fun!
 
I see we went off on a tangent about the merits of etymology. I saw someone once write "English isn't a language. It's three different languages standing on top of each other, and wrapped in a trench coat."

However, since not everyone is going to spend the time studying enough etymology to instantly understand the differences between all commonly confused words they come across, I suggest we get back to the main topic.

For example: "to hawk" means to sell items, in the conventional sense of shops selling stuff; but "to hock" actually refers to pawning one's own goods, hopefully to get them back after paying back the loan.
(For a while I thought "hock" applied to both.)
Unfortunately, you can't match the "aw" in pawn and hawk to help you. Instead I match the "o" in hock with that letter in "one's own goods" and "owe them money". And, perhaps the "a" in hawk with that letter in "sale".

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rjh01 said:
There or Their?

There as in here

Their - belong to someone.
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Directiony words always have "ere" and are related to some other questiony words with the same set of 1 or 2 letters to start:
where | there | here
whence (from where)|thence (from there)|hence (from here)
whither (to where)|thither (to there)|hither (to here)
wherefore (where's the reason?)|therefore (there's the reason!)|
when|then|
what|that|

Possessive pronouns; no apostrophe:
my mine your yours his her hers its our ours their theirs

Nominative pronouns + verbs = contractions; always an apostrophe:
I + am = I'm
you + are = you're
he + is = he's
she + is = she's
it + is = it's
we + are = we're
they + are = they're

So which one to use is always perfectly determinable by which group it's in and its similarities to others in its group

Not in any of those groups:
wear ≠ we're (which is in one of the 3 above groups)
hear ≠ here (which is in one of the 3 above groups)
are ≠ our (which is in one of the 3 above groups)
So even most of the misfits have a pattern: they all have the same three letters in them!
That only leaves "were", which has the "ere" of the directiony words, but starts with "w", not one of the three valid starters for those (wh/th/h).
 
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