Product Description
If you learned your name described something other than yourself, wouldn't you be curious? Buz is. And he's filled with questions: How can a simple change in spelling create a whole new word that has a whole new meaning? And how is it that these words actually sound the same, too?! Buz knows it's time for Mom to step in and do some quick explaining. It's this mother and son dynamic of teacher imparting knowledge to student, with the warmth and compassion of a mother nurturing her son, that makes this book so endearing. Charming illustrations that don't hinder the young readers understanding of the text is just one of the facets of this book, which sets it apart from other educational readers. Rhythmic flair with well-timed cadence make it a fun instructional tool or an entertaining diversion to read for pure fun.

Buz Words: Discovering Words in Pairs(tm) is the tale of a boy's afternoon adventure discovering homonyms. It's a fictional story that highlights the spelling and usage of some non-fictional, attention-grabbing words. With his mother's help, Buz becomes a pro at recognizing and using "tricky" vocabulary. "Buz" learns that bees "buzz" and that a "flower" in his garden is very different than the "flour" he eats in his cookies.It's a book that encourages the reader to listen to and have fun with rhythmic verse, as Buz eventually masters the world of homonyms. The fun is just beginning as Buz discovers his own name is a pair word! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent book for 1st, 2nd & 3rd Graders!
A colorful book that helps younger kids begin to make sense of homonyms. I like the way the author, Maria Felicia Kelley, uses the phrase "pair words" to refer to the word, homonyms. The illustrations are charming and the characters (a mother and son) are relatable to young kids. Great book! ... Read more

Product Description
Adjacent or adjoining? Abuse or misuse? Consist, comprise, constitute, or compose? Guarantee or warranty? Pose, propose, or propound? Stationery or stationary? The Dictionary of Confusable Words aims to clear up the confusion in such cases. In more than 1,100 entries, the meaning of 3,000 individual words are given,the difference between them is explained, and an illustrative example showing the correct usage is provided.
The book also includes specific examples to show past and present usage of words, and words occuring as the second or subsequent in a group are cross-referenced to ther head word in the appropriate alphabetical place. Editor Adrian Room has also included some familiar proper names that are sometimes confused, such as Liberia and Libya (countries), Monterey and Monterrey (towns), and Lloyds and Lloyd's (financial institutions).
Classic or classical? Discreet or discrete? Continual or Continuous? Principle or Principal? Confused? Be confused no longer, with this handy book as your user-friendly guide. ... Read more

Product Description
A comprehensive reference explains the difference between commonly confused words with more than eight hundred entries such as Copyright versus Trademark, Billiards versus Pool, and Sherbet versus Sorbet. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Confused author
This book covers many commonly confused words and attempts to explain their differences in usage. It covers subtle distinctions between words such as nude and naked, even though a person is not likely to misuse them out of confusion.It also covers not-so-subtle distinctions between commonly confused words such as murder and manslaughter.

The problem is that for a book that's supposed to be about shades of differences, the author makes many errors that might show up in somebody else's book on the same subject.For example, rather than having an entry on the proper use of comprised and composed he uses comprised when he means composed.

The section on religion shows a complete lack of research on his part. He uses the term "Judeo-Christian" as if the two religions were identical, and gives completely wrong explanations for some concepts. In that section, he describes a series of concepts that differ significantly between Judaism and Christianity, yet he describes only the Christian concept and calls it the "Judeo-Christian" concept.For a book that is supposed to clarify concepts, it actually does the opposite.It presents the Christian concept of a devil as a Jewish one, even though Judaism does not have a concept of a literal devil.It explains that Muslims do not see others as worshiping the same God.In reality, while it's true that many Muslims see Christians as polytheistic, others don't, and Muslims generally recognize Jews as followers of the same God. He applies the Christian belief in eternal damnation of non-believers to all other religions, while other religions do not necessarily have such a concept.For example, Judaism has no concept of eternal damnation or a literal separate place called hell, and simply does not hold that people of other religions are automatically excluded from their place in the world to come. In fact, it holds the opposite. Righteous people of other beliefs are equally worthy, and the concept dates back to the earliest parts of Judaism.

As a whole, the book covers many distinctions quite well.The problem is that there is no way of telling from reading the book whether you are learning another level of information, learning distinctions with no real life merit (or that even dictionaries don't make) or are actually learning complete misinformation.

The book does make an interesting read, but I would not take any of its points at face value.If you find an interesting point that you did not know, you had better look it up elsewhere before you decide it's correct. ... Read more

Product Description
For anyone who has ever hesitated over such troublesome pairs as adverse and averse, this book will prove indispensable. In concise and witty prose, Jim Harrison guides readers through 200 of the most frequently mixed-up word pairs. ... Read more

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Photographs and brief text illustrate several homonyms. ... Read more

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FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (14)

Great quick reference!
I keep this, along with 1001 Commonly Misspelled Words and WORDS YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW... handy while writing. I'm a writer, and I certainly don't want to embarrass myself with a misused or misspelled word!

Fun to flip through
This is cute book that is fun to flip through and keep with your dictionary.It is essentially just a small dictionary and beyond definitions doesn't go into detail on entomology.

Easy Encyclopedia of Misused Ordinary Words
"100 Words Almost Everyone Confuses and Misuses" is meant for the closet lexicographer, or self-righteous vocabularies junkies like myself who love to watch TV and laugh at the errors of speakers. Naturally, we want to protect ourselves from the same fate, and here's where the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries have helped us out.

100 words are here, from adverse to zoology. All will be familiar, but not all will be known. Troubling words, like 'discreet' and 'discrete,' are not only defined thoroughly, but clearly, with examples in common speech. Misuses are explained, and, before we become too smug, we discover words we too have confused.

Words like 'impeach' are included. In this case, it is not because there is a homonym, but because its definition has been misunderstood in popular language.

You will not invest either much time or money in this tiny treasure, but you might learn something. I have, and so then, I fully recommend "100 Words Almost Everyone Confuses and Misuses."

Anthony Trendl
http://AnthonyTrendl.blogspot.com

I got 88 Words almost everyone confuses & misuses
Before mailing my book to me, someone took the liberty of making the book shorter by detaching a few pages from the spine. Oh well. It's a good toilet reader. If you already have a strong English background then you probably won't benefit much from what this has to offer. There were very few words I came across that I confuse or misuse; irregardless was one of them.

Words Some People Confuse
Not for advanced readers. This is pretty rudimentary stuff and is really for someone who doesn't read or write much. Price and format are both good. Might be a good gift for a high school student who is daunted by English courses. ... Read more

Product Description
Covering words pronounced alike but different in spelling, words similar in meaning but with differences in definition, and words troublesome because of the grammatical rules covering their use, this dictionary helps you choose the right word for each occasion. ... Read more

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Learn to spell good well

Is there an "e" in judgment? When do you imply rather than infer? The only resource that answers both these questions is The McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Misspelled and Easily Confused Words. It's the only book that includes commonly misspelled words and a comprehensive usage guide in one handy volume. Featured are 7,000 of the most commonly misspelled words with their incorrect and correct spellings and a guide to demystifying homophones (cite vs. site), grammatically troublesome words (can vs. may), and subtly different words (imply vs. infer).

Product Description
An invaluable popular reference guide to over 2000 of the most commonly confused and misused words. Arranged alphabetically, each entry is paired with the word it is most commonly confused with, followed by a brief definition and/or explanation of the differences between the words and the shading in meaning and usage. Some words are paired because they sound or look alike; others are words that are interchangeable in some contexts but not in others; still others are words that are closely related or just commonly misunderstood or misused because of public carelessness or ignorance. This is a desk-top essential for anyone interested in language or correct word usage. ... Read more

Product Description
Appraise or apprise? Carat or karat? Vocal cord or vocal chord? Which of us has not erred in the use of homophones, those trickers that have similar sounds but different meanings? Quick to the rescue comes James J. Kilpatrick, who goads and delights as he draws memorable distinctions for puzzled writers. Charles Barsotti adds to the merriment with his own imaginative renderings of the abused words.

Readers of James J. Kilpatrick's widely praised book The Writer's Art know how deeply Kilpatrick cares about the language. Kilpatrick makes a joyous advance in his private war against muddleheadedness in The Ear is Human. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Grate Book!!
Kilpatrick provides a selection of homophones and other words that lend themselves to confusion. Most of the book is concerned with authors choosing the wrong word based on its pronunciation. Each case is presented with at least one example drawn from newspapers or other popular sources. He writes with wit and not a trace of humbleness as he points out the mistakes in others.

This isn't a technical book but rather a delight to read while being educational at the same time. ... Read more

Product Description
This expanded third edition defines and cross-references 7,781 homophones and 1,552 homographs (up from 7,000 and 1,400 in the 2d ed.). Reviews of the earlier editions: "The amount of material...is considerable"-Booklist/RBB; "a fine job.... Recommended"-Choice; "the best roster of these phenoma"-Wilson Library Bulletin; "a good choice for any library"-RQ.As the most comprehensive compilation of American homophones (words that sound alike) and homographs (look-alikes), this latest edition serves well where even the most modern spell-checkers and word processors fail-although rain, reign, and rein may be spelled correctly, the context in which these words may appropriately be used is not obvious to a computer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A delightful and useful book
This is a delightful and useful book.At least three kinds of people should buy it:

(1) People in computational linguistics and natural language processing.If you work in speech recognition, you need homophones to test (or illustrate challenges for) speech recognition systems.If you work in natural language processing, you need homographs to test your system's ability to handle lexical ambiguity.This book is a great source for both.

(2) People in phonetics and sociolinguistics.If you do experimental work in these fields, you want lots of minimal pairs.Although they're not labelled as such, this book will point you towards lots of minimal pairs for flapping, glide raising, and other phonological phenomena of English.

(3) People interested in the English language in general.I came across lots of interesting and cool words in here, and enjoy just flipping through this book.

In addition, the book is beautifully printed and bound.I would have expected it to cost a lot more. ... Read more

Product Description
Homophones are words that sound alike but have different spellings for different meanings--knight and night, chews and choose. Here is an illustrated dictionary of 387 sets of homophones, each with a colorful, amusing picture to enlighten and delight young readers, newcomers to the English language, and poor spellers of all ages. ... Read more

Product Description
NTC's Super-Mini Dictionary of Easily Confused Words is mini in size and super in comprehensiveness, perfect for you if you are studying the language or traveling to an English-speaking country and want to avoid typical mistakes made by other learners. It helps you guard against the misuse of homophones such as "there" and "their," explains grammatical rules that govern the use of "can" and "may," and points out similar words with subtle differences in definition, such as "disinterested" and "uninterested." Each of the 1,200 entries has a definition, International Phonetic Alphabet pronunciation, and an example sentence. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A writer's bible!
This wonderful book is a departure from the usual textbooks that feature "confusing words".Know the difference between cacophonous and euphonious; diffidence and indifference? Know when to use diplomacy vs tact?luxuriant vs luxurious?

To help out with the definitions, a sentence using the words is available.A 20 page quiz reinforces your knowledge.And to really help out, the index has each word so you can locate easily, since the listing of words can't be alphabetically due to different first letters in words.

Excellent writing tool!....MzRizz ... Read more

Product Description
This unique dictionary defines troublesome homonyms like banned and band, barred and bard in groups--so readers can quickly compare and distinguish between meanings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

PRACTICAL HELP FOR SPECIAL NEEDS
This books offers practical and clear guidance for those looking for answers to specific doubts. Quick reference and clear layout prevent the reader to waste time. A good choice for intermediate and advanced students of English as a second language. It deserves to be taken into accounttogether with other important works of reference. ... Read more