Appropriate vs. Apropos vs. Apt

Appropriate vs. Apropos vs. Apt Appropriate vs. Apropos vs. Apt Appropriate vs. Apropos vs. Apt By Maeve Maddox A reader has asked for a discussion of â€Å"appropriate vs. apropos vs. apt.† All three words may be used as adjectives meaning suitable or pertinent: Your reference to â€Å"The Emperor’s New Clothes† is apropos of the way so many people conform to social expectations rather than think for themselves. I admire your apt choice of words in this article. A rating of â€Å"G† indicates that a movie is appropriate for children. Of the three adjectives, appropriate [uh-PRO-pree-it] is heard more often. Appropriate derives from the past participle of a Latin verb, a combination of ad (to) and proprius (own). Something appropriate â€Å"belongs† to someone or something. Here are some examples of current usage: How Having An Appropriate Level Of Confidence Can Better Your Life By comparing many entertainment jobs, you should be able to get a good idea of the appropriate salary. The young offender could not be questioned without an appropriate adult present Was Lohan’s courtroom attire appropriate? Note: English also has the verb appropriate [uh-PRO-pree-ATE], â€Å"to take possession of.† For example, â€Å"A section of land at St. Clements in Oxfordhas been appropriated to planning purposes to facilitate a regeneration project intended for the area.† Apt is from the Latin word aptus, â€Å"fitted, suited, appropriate.† The adjective derives from a verb meaning â€Å"to fasten, to attach.† The most common use of apt is to describe the fitness or expressiveness of language. Another meaning of apt is â€Å"ready to learn,† as in â€Å"She’s an apt student.† Sometimes apt is a synonym for likely: â€Å"Children are apt to live up to what you believe of them.† Apt can also be used in the sense of â€Å"having an unfortunate tendency, or â€Å"exposed to a risk†: Spanked kids more apt to commit crimes Study: Immigrants who live, work together less apt to learn English The adjectival use of apropos is the least common of the three. I’ve seen forum comments asserting that apropos is â€Å"never a synonym for appropriate.† A French borrowing, apropos functions more often as a preposition or as an adverb. Apropos comes from French propos, â€Å"with regard to this purpose.† As an adjective, it is a synonym for appropriate: My point is rather that it is not  apropos  in every case. The mayor called the cornflake comment â€Å"not apropos† and warned Lukaszuk to be careful of what he says. Your allusion to Josephine Tey’s bit of dialogue was very clever and funnybut not apropos As a preposition, apropos means â€Å"with reference to; concerning†: The principal remarked apropos the new regulations, â€Å"They will cost a lot to implement and do nothing to address the problem.† As an adverb, apropos is most commonly heard in the expression â€Å"apropos of nothing.† The sense is that someone’s comments or actions are completely unrelated to any previous discussion or situation. For example, â€Å"Apropos of nothing, Tom started talking about his root canal.† The usual preposition to follow apropos is of. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:15 Terms for Those Who Tell the FutureOn Behalf Of vs. In Behalf OfCharles's Pen and Jesus' Name

3 Problems of Nonparallel Interjections

3 Problems of Nonparallel Interjections 3 Problems of Nonparallel Interjections 3 Problems of Nonparallel Interjections By Mark Nichol In a post published recently, I discussed simple problems of parallelism in sentence construction. Here are three examples of more complex errors involving corresponding sentence elements. 1. â€Å"Low-interest rates have been one of the primary, if not the primary factor in extending the real estate boom in the United States.† The corresponding phrases in this sentence are neither parallel nor complete. First, the additional consideration (â€Å"if not the primary factor†) must be structured as an interjection, meaning that it has to be bracketed parenthetically by commas, em dashes, or parentheses. (Which method you choose depends on the emphasis you want to give the interjection: Parentheses minimize the interruption, commas are the default punctuation for separating an interrupting phrase from the main sentence, and em dashes call attention to the inserted phrase.) In this case, â€Å"if not the primary factor† must be set off from the rest of the sentence with punctuation before and after; any of the three punctuation forms is appropriate. However, there’s more work to be done. The key to correctly constructing a sentence with an interjection is that if the interjection is omitted, the sentence is still complete. But read this version of the sentence with the interjection omitted: â€Å"Low-interest rates have been one of the primary in extending the real estate boom in the United States.† Obviously, factors must be inserted after the first use of primary in additional to the inclusion of the singular form of the word in the interjection: â€Å"Low-interest rates have been one of the primary factors, if not the primary factor, in extending the real estate boom in the United States.† 2. â€Å"Talk of a name change has struck some political observers as not only a merely cosmetic, but also as a pointless gesture.† As with the previous example, this sentence lacks a correctly framed interjection â€Å"but also as a pointless† must be set off from the rest of the sentence: â€Å"Talk of a name change has struck some political observers as . . . a merely cosmetic gesture.† (The ellipsis marks the omission of â€Å"not only,† which as part of the â€Å"not only . . . but also† comparative device is technically a part of the interjection.) The corrected sentence should read, â€Å"Talk of a name change has struck some political observers as not only a merely cosmetic, but also a pointless, gesture.† (Note the omission of the second instance of as.) Better yet, convert the interjection to a sentence-ending tag: â€Å"Talk of a name change has struck some political observers as not only a merely cosmetic gesture but also a pointless one.† 3. â€Å"He could have, but he didn’t, press for a clear, bilateral agreement on immigration.† Use the interjection-omission test described above to analyze this sentence’s problem: Without the (correctly punctuated) interjection, the sentence erroneously reads â€Å"He could have press for a clear, bilateral agreement on immigration.† A hypercorrection featuring logical correspondence at the expense of readability is â€Å"He could have pressed, but he didn’t press, for a clear, bilateral agreement on immigration.† As with the previous example, the sentence is best repaired by moving the interjection to the end of the sentence: â€Å"He could have pressed for a clear, bilateral agreement on immigration, but he didn’t.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Math or Maths?â€Å"As Well As† Does Not Mean â€Å"And†While vs. Whilst

Contemporary Cinema Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Contemporary Cinema - Essay Example New roles are now defined with a working mother, a father and a child. The mother is no longer just a stay at home mom but she is now an equal bread winner (Coontz, 2000). Even though family roles have shifted considerably, the theme of childhood and family has remained fairly prevalent in movies over the years. What we see on screens is either what was, or what is in terms of family roles and behavior. Even the best of fiction needs a base on which to build upon. As Gillis (1996) observed, family life is the new form of entertainment in the modern world. All parts of family pervade the movie scene and it would seem that the modern script writer is always on the lookout for new stories to base a new movie on. It’s no longer debatable that the themes of family and childhood permeate contemporary film today. However, what is often not considered is just how much these themes permeate contemporary cinema. Inflation, urban sprawl and population increase in the early 1990s is what likely pushed stay at home moms to the market place (Dryden, 1999). This paradigm shift was also translated into film as seen in the introduction of working mothers as opposed to the stay at home mothers. The working class women betrayed the traditional loyalty to their husbands since they were no longer the sole bread winners. These women started to compete with their men on various family issues. Men felt a bruise on their egos and reacted with violence, as seen in The Burning Bed (1984). This marked the origin of domestic violence in cinemas. Marriages started to break up and children had to be raised by their step fathers and step mothers. These children were shown to lack proper guidance from their half parents and adopted bad behaviors and became violent as well. In 1996, the US government did a survey on the characteristics of the modern day family and the findings were grave. The research concluded that there had been serious anti-family downward