Answers to flyer questions

The correct answers in italics.


1. What’s the correct answer to the question “Who’s calling?”
a) It’s I. b) It’s me.
2. Which is correct? A) He is taller than I. b) He is taller
than me.
3. She is a better skater than (a. he b. him).
4. a. We b. Us Christians believe in eternal life.
5. Please give this car to a) whoever b) whomever needs it.
6. But although he a) was b) were dead, yet shall he live.
7. How should you answer if greeted “Hi, how are you?” a) I’m fine.
b) I’m good (In both cases assuming that you woke up feeling
like a million dollars.)
8. Tell your brother that he (a. need b. needs) not come tomorrow.
9 Which is correct? b) Who said, “Et tu, Brute?”? b) Who said,
“Et tu, Brute?”
10. What’s wrong with this sentence? “Look at that”! he exclaimed. “Did
you see that”? In this particular sentence, the exclamation point and the
question mark shoould come inside the quotation marks.
11. How about this one? “Darling”, the wife purred, “buy me a Jaguar”. (Commas
and periods come inside quotation marks.)
12. Colons and semi-colons come a) inside b) outside quotation marks.
13. (a) With regard b) With regards) to your proposal,
please know that it has been tabled for today’s meeting.
14. The swindler got his a) just deserts b) just desserts.
15. Which is correct? a) One cannot eat his pie and have it too.
b) One cannot have his pie and eat it too.
16 Which is correct? a) To boldly go where no man has gone before…
b) To go boldly where no man has gone before…
17 Ice tea or iced tea? Stain glass or stained glass?
Teenage daughter or teenaged daughter?
18 After completing your work, do you say “I’m finished.”? Or “I’m
done.”?
19. Which is correct? a) The country is comprised of 7,000 islands.
b) The country comprises 7,000 islands.
20. Which is correct? a) I had never done business with him before.
b) I have never done business with him before.
21. Which is correct? Experts ( had, have) not thought the sound
barrier could be breached until Chuck Yeager did it.

AND, over five hundred tricky pronunciations like stabilize, tortoise, lambast, pivot, granite, martyr, vale (as in “vale of tears). Four hundred prepositions, five hundred plural forms, four dozen irregular verbs and their present, past, and past participle.

The Kids in the 3rd Xavier Estates Spelling Open Nov 11.06

"Vale" and "martyr"

It's amazing how bloopers can be made quite so easily even by people who by nature like to be accurate.

In the original post, I said "It's amazing but I recently realized that Filipinos have been praying the Hail Holy Queen for as long as I can remember but have been mispronouncing the "vale" in "To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning, and weeping in this VALE of tears..."

All it needed was a quick check with "Hail Holy Queen" in the Internet to find out that sometimes the word is "vale," but often it's "valley." So as Pete Millan of Forzamillan.blogspot.com has pointed out, both are correct.

My mistake.


To continue with the rest of the original post:

Another word which I realized we have been mispronouncing al the while is "martyr."


martyr
2 entries found for martyr.
To select an entry, click on it.
martyr[1,noun]martyr[2,transitive verb]

Main Entry: 1mar·tyr
Pronunciation: 'mär-t&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English, from Late Latin, from Greek martyr-, martys witness
1 : a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion
2 : a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle
3 : VICTIM; especially : a great or constant sufferer - mar·tyr·i·za·tion /"mär-t&-r&-'zA-sh&n/ noun
- mar·tyr·ize /'mär-t&-"rIz/ transitive verb

Legerdemain

Go easy on those nice-looking, foreign-sounding words like "legerdemain." A columnist in the Philippine Star of November 4 used the word in a way that she probably wouldn't have had she been aware of the connotation of the word.

She used "legerdemain" to describe the "wizardry" of a pianist. It's true the word has to do with the skilful use of one's hands, but this is usually in a context implying deceit, as in a "shells" artist in a rural fiesta who manages to flick the tiny seed off any of the shells and "palm" it, making it impossible for the mark to make a correct guess.

The rule is: Try to be thoroughly familiar with a word before using it.