You'll learn to choose the exact word to express what you mean--to discriminate between homonyms (words that sound alike but mean different things), such as site, cite, and sight. You'll also discover the difference between commonly misused words, such as persuade and convince, affect and effect, and ensure and insure.

 

To make most nouns plural, you simply add an "s": dog/dogs, car/cars, book/books. However, the spelling of many words changes slightly in the plural form: baby/babies, calf/calves, child/children, woman/women.

 

Most people learn to capitalize the names of people and places (George Washington, Akron, Ohio), the days of the week (Tuesday), the names of months (July), and holidays (Thanksgiving). You'll learn the lesser-known rules for capitalization, such as when to capitalize job titles, trade and company names, documents and forms, historical periods, and geographical locations.