Assure how to make sure youre using them right do you find yourself jolted awake in the middle of the night, seized with the paralyzing dread that you may have used either ensure, insure, or assure when one of the others was called for, when writing a letter to a very important person. Grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing quotes. Mignon fogartys most popular book is grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing. Sample text for grammar girls quick and dirty tips for. I will use each in a sentence, and i will show you a helpful trick to use when you cant decide whether you mean grammer or grammar.
To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. If you ensure that something happens, you make certain that it happens. However, rather than using these words interchangeably, id like to point out the unique aspects of each word so that you can use them to. On the other hand, the word ensure is also used as a verb, and it is used in the sense of make sure. I get complaints from purists, but usage girl doesnt have the same ring to it as grammar girl, and my books and podcasts arent for purists anywaytheyre for people who actually need help. To ensure something is to make sure it happensto guarantee it. Grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing book. Grammar girl quick and dirty tips for better writing listen. Use compared with when noting both similarities and differences by way of bernoullis principle, the mechanics and function of a dragonflys. Other sites feature, for example, advice and information on science, health, finance, career, and lifestyle from inhouse experts with zany names like everyday einstein and mighty mommy. Grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing quick. Previously published as part of grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing. To insure something or someone is to cover it with an insurance policy.
Passed and past is a very commonly confused pair, but once you know the difference between passed and past, you wont make that mistake again. If you insure him, then youre taking out a policy on his life. Aug 19, 2016 the words assure, ensure, and insure are among the common terms that are often misused and interchanged. Insure is the easiest to remember, because it has the same initial letters as insurance.
However, rather than using these words interchangeably, id like to point out the unique aspects of each word so that you can use them to communicate your intention clearly. Assure is something you do to a person, a group of people, or an animal to remove doubt or anxiety, as in squiggly assured aardvark that hed come to the party early. Covering the grammar rules and word choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers, grammar girl makes complex grammar questions simple with memory tricks to help you recall and apply those troublesome grammar rules. Even the most casual look at assure, ensure, and insure will show that.
You are the object of my affection and the object of my sentence. All three words share an element of making an outcome sure. This was 30 years ago, in the united states, so its not a matter of being trendy or trying to sound british. Also derived from securus are the english words sure, assure, secure, and security. Grammar girl quick and dirty tips for better writing. Celebrating our 11th anniversary company grammarly for microsoft word is now available on mac company supportive resources for leading with empathy and care company letter from the editor. Sample text for grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing mignon fogarty. Assure vs ensure the english language can be very confusing if one is learning it as a foreign language. Alas, in grammar girls world, diamonds are always expensive, so leaving out the words which are expensive doesnt change the. Witty podcasts and posts offer language tips and tricks. Before we get to the memory trick though, i want to explain the difference between the two words.
There are many homophones in english that are easily confused, especially in writing. In my book woe is i, i used this sentence to illustrate the traditional differences among them. These blankets ensure that youll be warm enough to insure is to cover with an insurance policy what you insure you entrust to a business. Both assure and ensure mean to make something certain but assure also means to tell someone in a very strong and definite way that something will happen or that something is true. Grammar girl has won four podcast awards for best education podcast and been named one of. We collected the most brilliant ideas for every subject, book need, and classroom management to.
That is used to indicate a specific object, item, person, condition, etc. The blogger grammar girl suggest a mnemonic that may work for some of us. Grammar girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing. After reading this post, i can assure you will never misuse ensure vs. The easiest way to listen to podcasts on your iphone, ipad, android, pc, smart.
New york times bestselling author mignon fogarty shares her weekly grammar girl podcast and video tips about english, grammar, and writing. Nov 26, 2007 the three words, assure, ensure, and insure, are often confused. Get grammar girls take on the debate over hanged versus hung. Similarly, does one think that it is important to eat brussels sprouts or think it is important to eat brussels sprouts. We ensured the success of the plan after we assured the chairman that the property would be insured.
What is the difference between grammar and grammer. Assurance is the guarantee that something will happen however insurance is the policy that covers up any losses. Some sources note that people use assure, ensure, and insure interchangeably. Mignon fogarty has 14 books on goodreads with 12430 ratings. To the delight of word nerds everywhere, grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing came out yesterday.
However, you can easily avoid confusion by remembering their distinct uses. The three words, assure, ensure, and insure, are often confused. Hanged versus hung grammar girl quick and dirty tips. Grammarly can save you from misspellings, grammatical and punctuation mistakes. Is there a technical explanation, or is it just my ears. The verbs assure, ensure, and insure all have the general meaning to make sure, and even though some argue that they are interchangeable 1,2, many maintain that their usage is dependent on context 3,4,5,6. Compare it versus grammar difference between assure vs ensure. It is possible to use the spelling of insure, ensure, and assure to distinguish the three words from one another.
What you ensure results from your personal efforts. Assure versus ensure versus insure english words, prefixes, latin. Learn the definitions of insure, assure, and ensure, and when to use them. The that is sometimes optional, sometimes obligatory, sometimes it is. There are many words that sound the same or even look the same, but these words are used in entirely different contexts as they have entirely different meanings. Grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing is an educational podcast produced by mignon fogarty that was launched in july 2006 and the title of a print book by fogarty that was released in july 2008.
Even though my show is called grammar girl, the secret is that its not usually grammar that confounds peopleits usage. If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the faq by clicking the link above. Assure is also somewhat formal, and, therefore, it doesnt often appear in casual conversations. It always grates on me when i see insure used where ensure would be a better fit. The use of that in your examples is that of a marker of clausal subordination more specifically, in your examples, it is the marker of a declarative content clause.
So, lets explore many thesauri list these as synonyms for each other, so that helps to confuse us further. Aug 26, 2008 get grammar girl s take on assure versus ensure versus insure. Sep 02, 2017 assure is also somewhat formal, and, therefore, it doesnt often appear in casual conversations. If a that clause follows the verb, you must use ensure. I agree that some grammar rules can and need to be brokenoccasionally. Playing with grammar rules can result in great, stylistic writing when done correctly. Ensure is subtly different from assure and people often confuse the two. From the quick and dirty tips series, grammar girl aka mignon fogarty provides you tips to improve your writing in a short and fun format. When you want to say that something makes something else certain, use either assure or ensure. The writer elmore leonard, who died in 20 at the age of 87, was the master of hardbitten prose. Written with the wit, warmth, and accessibility that the podcasts are known for, grammar girl s quick and dirty tips for better writing covers the grammar rules and wordchoice guidelines that can confound even the best writers.
Founder of the quick and dirty tips podcasting network. Written with the wit, warmth, and accessibility that the podcasts are known for, grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing covers the grammar rules and wordchoice guidelines that can confound even the best writers. The majority of the time you use affect with an a as a verb and effect with an e as a noun. Ensure to add the ingredients one at a time sounds off, but replacing it with make sure sounds fine. Also, insure is typically reserved for financial meanings. I will cover the functions, definitions, and grammar behind each word, so you can understand their differences and use them properly. Assurei mean, ensuregood writing by mark nichol once upon a time, professional and amateur writers alike could count on books and publications to help guide them in writing clearly, coherently, and concisely. Grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing by. Use compared to to point out similarities between things ram can be compared to rom in that both involve memory storage.
Aug 14, 2012 my high school english class taught ensure vs. Does one ensure that the package is delivered safely. Effect by grammar girl what is the difference between affect and effect. Compared to compared with style for students online. Today, i want to clear up that confusion and outline the unique characteristics of each of these words. The standard rule of grammar is that the usage of that vs. Often the problem becomes that writers bloggers dont understand the rules they are breaking, which results in poor copy and can make a writer sound unintelligent even if they aren. Grammar girl is part of the quick and dirty tips network. Mignon fogartys most popular book is grammar girls. Jan 01, 2008 to the delight of word nerds everywhere, grammar girl s quick and dirty tips for better writing came out yesterday. Confusing words and homonyms misused words in english. I assure you, said the grieving widow, i ensured he was insured to the hilt. Books by mignon fogarty author of grammar girls quick. Three oftenconfused verbsassure, ensure, and insure all mean roughly to make secure or safe or certain.
The word assure is used as a verb, and it is used in the sense of promise or tell someone something positively to dispel any doubts. You have been successfully subscribed to the grammarly. In this article, i will compare the words grammar vs. Only people can feel anxious or doubtful only they can be assured. He started out as a pulp novelist, and went on to transcend. Since discovering grammar girl, ive acquired plenty of fresh knowledge about grammar, some of which ive shared here in the writing forward grammar posts. Passed past tense and past participial form of the verb to pass. Its not quite that cutanddriedsome of my reference books say hung isnt wrong, just less customary, when. Inspiration 7 famous writers unconventional workspaces, explained company supporting health, safety, and wellbeing during the covid19 outbreak company counting down to today.
Homonyms are sometimes confusing words that are pronounced the same but have different meanings. Assure, ensure, and insure are three words people sometimes confuse. In general, to assure is to lend confidence, to ensure is to confirm, and to insure is to indemnify as with an insurance policy and insure may have legal implications. Jan 16, 2017 in this video linda explains the differences between assure, insure and ensure. Listen to grammar girl quick and dirty tips for better writing episodes free, on demand. Mignon fogarty is the creator and host of grammar girl. Heres what you need to know in the battle of insure vs. This may be attributed to how all three words can be associated with the sureness of an outcome.
Insure makes the distinction that the definition of ensure is to make sure something will or wont happen, whereas insure means to issue an insurance policy. Grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing. Assurei mean, ensuregood writing by mark nichol once upon a time, professional and amateur writers alike could count on books and publications to help guide them in. To better see what we are up against when deciding when to use was or were, lets compare the past and subjunctive conjugations of to be side by side. Not only do these three words sound similar, they also make an outcome sure but they are in no way. Therefore, ensure the tradition of excellence is a better choice. Online sensation grammar girl makes punctuation fun and easy in grammar girls punctuation 911.
Getting started is simple download grammarlys extension today. Millions trust grammarlys free writing app to make their online writing clear and effective. Grammar girl, is determined to wipe out bad punctuationbut shes also determined to make the. Is there a grammatical reason why ensure to sounds wrong to me, or am i just not used to hearing it. On its path from latin through french and into english, securus became simplified and took on a variety of prefixes, thus leading to the confusingly similar english verbs assure, ensure, and insure. Grammar girl publishes web articles and a weekly audio podcast and newsletter to help people write better. From punctuation to style, grammar girl has you covered in her weekly on demand podcasts.
Get grammar girls take on assure versus ensure versus insure. There are many words that sound the same or even look the same, but these words are used in entirely different contexts as they have entirely different mean. So many people refer to themselves as i in the reflexive. I am currently reading grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing by mignon fogarty. The three verbs are very much related to each other as all three of them deal with guaranteeing on thing or another. To ensure is to do or have what is necessary for success. Whenever i listen to her podcast, scan her blog, or read her book, i always pick up new insight into grammar and writing. The words assure, ensure, and insure are among the common terms that are often misused and interchanged.