Principal and principle sound the same, yet they have different meanings.
PRINCIPAL
As an adjective, principal means the most important. What’s the principal theme of the book? Principal is also a noun, meaning leading person. He is now principal of the school.
The principal product is cement
Principal can also refer to a sum of money on which interest is paid. During the first years most of your payments go towards interest rather than principal.
PRINCIPLE
A principle is a rule or guideline. The principle of subsidiarity and the principle of proportionality govern the exercise of the EU’s competences. Einstein formulated the principle of general covariance. I’ve always seen him as a man of principle. ”Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well I have others.” (Groucho Marx)
Than is used mainly to introduce the second part of a comparison. The weather is much nicer today than yesterday. I’d rather go for a walk than sit in the garden. Isn’t she taller than her brother?
But what about She is taller than he and She is taller than him?
Nowadays many linguists agree that than is both a conjunction and a preposition. As a conjunction it introduces a new clause, often only implied – She is taller than he [is], and as a preposition it is followed by the object form – She is taller than him.
However, we cannot always ignore the difference between the conjunction and the preposition. She likes my cousin better than I (with than as a conjunction) does not convey the same meaning as She likes my cousin better than me (with than as a preposition). The first sentence means She likes my cousin better than I like my cousin, whereas the second one means She likes my cousin better than she likes me.
As your copyeditor I would recommend that you use than as a conjunction (with the subject form) in formal writing such as a doctoral thesis or a paper for a scientific journal.
Than is also used with some adverbial expressions such as hardly, no sooner, scarcely.
No sooner had we settled down on the beach than a heavy rain started to fall. (Notice that the verb comes before the subject of the verb.)
THEN
Then refers to a point in time, either in the past or in the future.
He studied in Paris then. By then, they had married and were expecting their first child. We worked out at the gym and then we took a long swim. First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin (Song by Leonard Cohen) The door closes automatically at 10 p.m., so you must be back before then. The then President Obama gave a passionate speech.
Supplement and complement are used as nouns and verbs. The adjectives are supplementary and complementary.
SUPPLEMENT
Supplement as a verb means add to, increase. She supplemented her salary by freelancing as a journalist. The lecturer gave her students a handout to supplement the textbook.
It is also used as a noun. After a few years the author felt that he had to write a supplement to his book. Have you read the Sunday supplement? (Here supplement means an additional section of a newspaper.) Many athletes use herbal supplements.
COMPLEMENT
Complement means complete, harmonise with, bring to perfection. That tie really complements your suit. Red wine and cheese complement each other. Watching them together on the track through the forest I saw how well they complemented each other.
The lemon taste complemented the drink
In mathematics, angles are complementary if they add up to 90 degrees and supplementary if they equal 180 degrees.
COMPLIMENT
Compliment as a verb means to praise, to express appreciation or admiration. He complimented her on her new dress.
It is also used as a noun. Every time someone calls me a nerd, I take it as a compliment. The dinner was excellent. Give my compliments to the chef!
Writers are sometimes not sure about when to write it’s or its.
IT’S An apostrophe means that a letter has been left out (sometimes more than one letter). It’s is the abbreviated form of it is (or sometimes it has).
It’s hard to believe that he is 14 years old (It is hard to believe…). The book is very thick, but it’s really interesting (it is really interesting). It’s been a long day (It has been a long day). It’s got to be true (It has got to be true).
ITS Its is the possessive form of the pronoun it.
Stockholm is known for its many islands. The cat was licking its paw.
The cat was licking its paw
The simple rule is this: If you can say it is or it has, then the form with an apostrophe, it’s, is correct.
It’s frightening when the bear opens its massive jaws
The abbreviated form it’s should not be used in formal language – there you should write it is.
What is true about it’s and its also applies to you’re and your, they’re and their or who’s and whose.
Affect and effect are two words that easily get mixed up
AFFECT
Affect is mainly used as a verb. It means have an impact on, have an effect on. The bad weather affected our plans for the evening. The old man was visibly affected by the girl’s kind words. How will the strike affect your job?
Affect can also have the meaning pretend to be or have.
I don’t like how he affects a British accent.
The bad weather affected our plans for the evening
EFFECT
Effect is a noun. It denotesthe result of an action oran impression. The effect of his words was immediate. I liked the sound effects in the film. The law is still in effect.
To sum up, most often affect is a verb and effect is a noun.
That said, you may – on rare occasions – find affect used as a noun. Then it means something that acts on something else, usually in psychological jargon.
And effect can be used as a verb meaning to produce, bring about something new, often in phrases like ”to effect a change”
Have you ever thought about the difference between effective and efficient?
EFFECTIVE
Use effective when you want to say that something gives the result that was intended. Effective tells us whether something has been done, not how it was done. The focus is on the result.
Those pills are really effective – my headache disappeared in less than twenty minutes. The manager’s speech was short but remarkably effective.
Being effective can also mean officially start.
The new regulation is effective from 1 October.
EFFICIENT
Use efficient to say that somebody or something works well without wasting time, money or energy. Efficient tells us how something was achieved. The focus is on the process, on minimising cost or waste.
We are installing a much more efficient cooling system. She is a very efficient salesperson.
To sum up, effective is goal-oriented and focuses on the ability to produce a wanted result; efficient focuses on how little was wasted to produce the result. Or, to quote Peter Drucker, being effective means doing the right things, being efficient means doing things right.
An efficient company will do things at a lower cost (with higher profit), but it must also meet the customers’ requirements by being effective.
The corresponding nouns are effectiveness and efficiency.
If you have seven minutes to spare, here is a video explaining the difference between effective and efficient. And here you can read about affect and effect.
As a non-native writer of English you are naturally influenced by your own language and culture. When you write in English for an academic or scientific journal, you should bear in mind the Anglo-American style. It is especially important how you structure your text.
The text should have a clear structure with a linear presentation of the main idea and sub-ideas. Scientific journal articles are usually structured according to what is abbreviated as IMRAD, referring to Introduction, Material and Methods, Results and Discussion. To facilitate understanding, each paragraph deals with one issue, and a set of paragraphs form a logical unit.
Sentences, too, must be clearly structured. The subject comes before the verb, and adverbs and adverb phrases begin or end a sentence.
Structure
Writers from other cultures may be used to a different way of expanding on an idea; they may deviate from the topic, giving further examples and explanations, often in complicated sentences.
In some languages, adverb phrases can be inserted in the middle of a sentence, often breaking up verb forms or a verb and its object. This is not done in English, where the adverb phrase instead is put at the beginning or the end of the sentence.
Don’t write: *The company has in Sweden 600 employees. (For the use of the asterisk * read at the end of this page.) Write instead: In Sweden the company has 600 employees. Or: The company has 600 employees in Sweden.
Don’t write: *The technology is by some manufacturers expected to be dominant on the market within five years. Write instead: Some manufacturers expect the technology to be dominant on the market within five years. This example also shows that it is better to change passive voice to active.
There are many abbreviations of Latin words in English, but most of the words behind those abbreviations are not used in English in their full form.
The following are some Latin abbreviations used in English:
a.m.
ante meridiem
before noon
ca.
circa
about
cf.
confer
(bring together) compare
c.p.
caeteris paribus
other things being equal
e.g.
exempli gratia
for example
et al.
et alia, et aliae, et alii
and others
etc.
et caetera
and so on
f., ff.
folium, folia
page(s)
i.a.
inter alia
among other things
ibid.
ibidem
in the same place
i.e.
id est
that is
lb.
libra
pound (weight)
nem.con.
nemine contradicente
no one dissenting
op.cit.
opera citato
the work cited
p.a.
per annum
per year
p.m.
post meridiem
after noon
p.p.
per procurationem
through the agency of
q.v.
quod vide
on this matter see
re
in re
in the matter of
sic
sic erat scriptum
thus it was written
vs. (in legal text v.)
versus
against
viz.
videlicet
namely, that is to say
You can use sic to indicate a mistake in a cited text to show that the mistake was in the original text and is not yours. It is usually put inside square brackets: [sic]
The following are capitalised:
AD
anno Domini
in the year of the Lord
C.V.
curriculum vitae
course of life
M.O.
modus operandi
method of operating
N.B.
nota bene
note well
P.S.
post scriptum
after what has been written
Even if Latin words often are italicised in English text, you should write their abbreviations in normal font.
The Latin abbreviation et al. is short for et alia (et aliae, et alii), meaning and others (alia is masculine plural, aliae is feminine plural and alii neuter plural).
When referring to literature, the abbreviation is used to replace author or editor names when there are more than two (in some cases more than three) authors or editors:
Simon et al. (2000) showed the importance of R&D for production. This has been pointed out in previous research (e.g., Eriksson et al., 2016; Palm et al., 2016; Platts et al., 1996).
Make sure you put the full stop in the right place! The word et is not abbreviated but alia is, so the full stop must be after al.
When you write et al., the verb must of course have its plural form: Simon et al. (2000) have pointed out that …
In the possessive form, et al. is followed by an apostrophe and an s: Simon et al.’s (2000) contribution to research …
Latin words are sometimes italicised in English text, but abbreviations should not be in italics, unless the publisher requires it.
You will find some common Latin abbreviations in English here.
Continual and continuous (and the adverbs continually and continuously) come from the verb continue but there is a difference between them.
CONTINUOUS
Continuous means that something is going on without interruption, non-stop. The continuous humming from the fridge made me crazy. (A continual humming would be worrying: Why does it stop, start again, stop, then start again …?)
CONTINUAL
Continual implies that something often happens with intervals, comes and goes. Being a typical teenager she had continual quarrels with her parents about homecoming rules. (Both she and her parents should be happy that the quarrels were not continuous.)
As with many other word pairs you may find that some writers don’t make a distinction between these two words. As a good English writer you know the difference, of course.
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