Proofreading the Section Notice
A draft notice from the stationery section is about to be circulated to all departments. It reads: 'The stationery department recieves requisitions on the first Monday of every month. Please seperate the pink copies and send them to the liasion officer, who will acommodate late requests only where there is a definate shortage. The principle reason for the new procedure is to reduce the occurence of duplicate orders. Staff are reminded that the effect of the change will be monitored, and that any stationary taken for personal use will be charged.' A second paragraph, added by the section head, reads: 'The board may sanction the revised rates at its next meeting.'
1. List every misspelling in the first paragraph with its correction, and give a short memory hook for the four that clerks most often get wrong.
Read the worked answer
| Draft | Correction |
|---|---|
| recieves | receives |
| seperate | separate |
| liasion | liaison |
| acommodate | accommodate |
| definate | definite |
| principle reason | principal reason |
| occurence | occurrence |
| stationary taken for personal use | stationery |
Hooks:
- separate - there is a rat in separate; also -par- as in pare.
- accommodate - big enough to accommodate two of each: double c, double m.
- definite - from finite; if you can spell finite, you can spell definite.
- stationery / stationary - stationery is bought by a stationer (paper, envelopes, pens); stationary means standing still, as in a stationary vehicle.
Note on receives: the 'i before e except after c' jingle would make this look wrong, but the rule governs the sound, and here the letters after c make the ee sound; receive is a genuine exception pair with believe and piece. Learn the word, not the jingle.
What is correctly spelled and must not be 'corrected': effect in 'the effect of the change' - the noun is right here; affect is the verb.
2. The first paragraph confuses principle/principal. State the distinction precisely and give a test a clerk can apply in a long document where there is no time to think about each case.
Read the worked answer
The distinction:
- Principal - adjective 'chief, main' (the principal reason, the principal office) or noun 'head of an institution' or 'sum of money lent' (the principal and the interest).
- Principle - noun only: 'a rule, law or standard' (a matter of principle, the principle of filing letter by letter).
The substitution test: replace the word with main. If the sentence still makes sense, write principal; if it does not, write principle.
- 'The ___ reason for the new procedure' → 'the main reason' works → principal. ✔
- 'He refused on ___' → 'on main' fails → principle. ✔
Applying it at scale: do not read for sense on every occurrence. Run a find-and-replace search for 'principle' and inspect only those hits - the word is far rarer than 'principal' in office text, so the shorter list is the one to check. Then search 'principal' only in documents that discuss money or school leadership.
Traps to expect: in principle and on principle are always -ple; principal's office and principal amount are always -pal.
3. The section head's sentence - 'The board may sanction the revised rates' - is grammatically correct but unsafe in a notice. Explain the problem and rewrite it.
Read the worked answer
The problem is ambiguity, not grammar. Sanction is a contronym in business usage: as a verb it commonly means approve/authorise, but it also means to impose a penalty on. A reader who supplies the second sense reads the notice as a threat that the board may penalise the new rates - or the staff who apply them - which is the opposite of the intended meaning.
Why it matters here: this is a notice that will be read once, quickly, by people who will act on it. An ambiguous verb in a line about rates invites a query to the section, or worse, unapproved charges being reversed on the assumption that they were penalised rather than authorised.
Rewrites:
- 'The board is expected to approve the revised rates at its next meeting.'
- 'The board will consider and authorise the revised rates at its next meeting.'
Note the second change: may is also doing damage. It signals possibility only, so even a correct verb would leave staff unsure whether the rates apply. Use is expected to or will consider, and state plainly that the current rates apply until the board's decision is circulated.
Rule of thumb: when a word has two opposite senses, do not rely on context to disambiguate it in a one-line instruction - replace it.