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  • Language tip of the week: independence

    Posted by on July 24, 2014

    Learn English with Macmillan DictionaryIn this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. These tips are usually based on areas of English which learners find difficult, e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc.

    This week’s language tip helps with the spelling of the noun independence:

    Note that the correct spelling is independence (not ‘independance’ or ‘indipendence’):
    ✗ Financial independance implies earing a living.
    ✓ Financial independence implies earning a living.

    The related adjective is independent (not ‘independant’):

    ✗ Seek independent legal advice before entering into an agreement.
    ✓ Seek independent legal advice before entering into an agreement.

    More language tips

    Browse the list under the ‘language tips‘ tag here on the blog for more useful language tips.

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  • Posted by Stan to Could you care less? on July 24, 2014 Erik: Could care less is not valid in formal standard English, except when used ironically or jocularly, but it is valid in certain informal and colloquial varieties where people use it as the usual idiom. The same goes for ain't. There's no cause for alarm.

  • Posted by Erik Zidowecki to Could you care less? on July 24, 2014 I disagree with the argument that "I could care less" is valid simply because people use it. It is used because people are ignorant of the proper idiom. For years, English teachers have taught that using "ain't" is incorrect, despite the number of people that use it. Would you now claim that it is fine to use? I have seen people use "for all intensive purposes" instead of "for all intents and purposes" because they misheard...

  • Posted by Macmillan Dictionary to Life skills tip of the week: ways of expressing uncertainty on July 24, 2014 Hi Ana. If you go to one of the lesson plans and look at the top right hand corner you will see an arrow symbol (third from left). Clicking this will allow you to save the file to your computer.

  • Posted by Stan to Parallelism, precision, and pedantry on July 23, 2014 Thanks for bringing this research to my attention, Kim.

  • Posted by Ana to Life skills tip of the week: ways of expressing uncertainty on July 23, 2014 can you please tell me how to download all these lessons? they are fantastic but I see no way of using them in a PDF doc. or word. It would be really very helpful. Thank you in advance Ana

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