adopt, adapt

Adopt, adapt

To adopt something is to take it as one's own, as to adopt a stray cat or to adopt a new dress code.
To adapt is to alter something slightly to make it fit a new situation. For example, if one is mechanically inclined, one can adapt an engine to make it fit a different make of car, or one can adapt a set of rules from one organization so that they can be used in a different organization.

Apostrophe Quiz Answers

Apostrophe Quiz Answers                                                         INDEX

Miss Sweetcakes was one of those ladies who knew what she wanted out of life. When she found that McLintock had been two-timing her, she dropped him like last week's mashed potatoes. She was more interested in Professor Aristotle Mongoose. Among Mongoose's admirable qualities were a dapper mustache, a scintillating wit, and a love of chocolate tidbits. Miss Sweetcakes and Professor Mongoose never ran out of topics for conversation. They could always discuss their passions for chocolate and and for each other. Mongoose was always singing love's old sweet songs to her. His idea of a great date involved a triple chocolate delight at Maude's House of Chocolate. His ideas and hers were the same on lots of things. In everyone's eyes, Professor Mongoose and Miss Sweetcakes were soul mates.

Explanations

" His" and " hers" are possessive pronouns. We don't use apostrophes with possessive pronouns, except for indefinite pronouns, like " everyone."
Businesses like Maude's House of Chocolate sometimes elect not to use an apostrophe in their name.
The other words ending in s in the paragraph are either names (like Sweetcakes) or plurals (like " qualities" and " ideas"). It would be incorrect to put an apostrophe with a plural that is nor possessive.

Apostrophe Quiz

Apostrophe Quiz                                                      INDEX

Print this page and put apostrophes in the appropriate places in the following paragraph:
Miss Sweetcakes was one of those ladies who knew what she wanted out of life. When she found that McLintock had been two-timing her, she dropped him like last weeks mashed potatoes. She was more interested in Professor Aristotle Mongoose. Among Mongooses admirable qualities were a dapper mustache, a scintillating wit, and a love of chocolate tidbits. Miss Sweetcakes and Professor Mongoose never ran out of topics for conversation. They could always discuss their passions for chocolate and for each other. Mongoose was always singing loves old sweet songs to her. His idea of a great date involved a triple chocolate delight at Maudes House of Chocolate. His ideas and hers were the same on lots of things. In everyones eyes, Professor Mongoose and Miss Sweetcakes were soul mates.


ANSWERS

Words and phrases commonly confused or misused

• INDEX
• 
  
• 
  
• accept, except
• adapt, adopt
• advice, advise
• affect, effectaffect, effect
• allude, elude
• alot
• alright
• among, between
• amount, number
• awhile, a while
• bad, badly
• compliment, complement
• defuse, diffuse
• delusion, illusion
• desperate, disparate
• discrete, discreet
• disinterested, uninterested
• eminent, immanent
• energize, enervate
• etymology, entomology
• evoke, invoke
• faze, phasefaze. phase
• fewer, less
• flair or flare
• hardy, hearty
• hopefully
• horde, hoard
• hyper or hypo?
• imply, infer
• ingenious, ingenuous
• its or it's?
• lie, lay
• loath,loathe
• loose, lose
• like or as
• martial or marital?
• peace, piece
• peak, pique, peek
• persecute, prosecute
• prescribe, proscribe
• principal, principle
• rein, reign
• rite, right
• sheer, shear
• sneak, snuck
• strait, straight
• there, they're, their
• supposed to
• than, then
• to or too
• torturous, tortuous
• unique
• verbal or oral?
• whose or who's?
• wreck or wreak?

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Take a Quiz on Commonly Confused Wor

COMMAS

index

Comma Rules

Commas with Introductory Expressions

Commas with Interrupters

Commas with Compound Sentences

Commas with Coordinating Conjunctions

Commas between Sentence Elements

Commas with Series and Conventions

Unnecessary Commas

Comma Quiz

Comma Quiz Answers

PUNCTUATION

• INDEX
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• apostrophes
• colons
• commas
• minor punctuation marks
• quotations
• semicolons

Index

Index

• effective sentences
• mechanics
• parts of speech
• punctuation
• rules of grammar
• sentence problems
• sentence structure
• words often confused or misused

Instructions

You may have to click twice on some of these links


THE GRAMMAR DOCTOR is a work in progress. It will take a long time to get all the parts in place. So far we have the pages on commas and apostrophes and a few of the pages on words often confused or misused. We will keep adding new material every week.