Earlier in the week as I was grading my college comp I papers, I noticed a few mistakes with the witch and which. So, in honor of my college students, here’s your 5 Minute Grammar Lesson!
#1. A WITCH is a magical woman. A noun. She might ride a broom and wear a pointy hat. Or, she may have tattoos and like to knit. You never know. Which is why you might not want to judge and brings me to point #2.
#2. WHICH is an adjective or a pronoun. You generally want more information when you use WHICH. WHICH car did you buy? WHICH book did you read? WHICH witch did you see last night?
http://www.allhealthyrecipes.net/tuna-club-sandwich-recipe/
#3. Of course, just to utterly confuse you, English has a third type of wich – SANDWICH – notice, no t or extra h as found in #1 and #2. But doesn’t that look good? 😉
Unfortunately, these three words are NOT interchangeable. As with so many other things in English, they just have to be memorized. I highly suggest not getting them confused on formal papers for English teachers! 🙂
And that’s your 5 Minute Grammar Lesson! Enjoy!!
Amy
Tuesday 4th of October 2011
Always remembered that "the witch" does not get to eat a "sandwich." That's honestly how I remembered it in 4th grade spelling. The things you remember!
Robin H
Sunday 2nd of October 2011
Ever considered a little quiz for your students at the beginning of a class? Test them on many commonly misued/misspelled words by having each student fill in the blanks? Example: "____ ____ is eating a ____?" with choices, "sandwich," "which," and "witch." You could REALLY have some fun with this!!! We could all pitch in with ideas to come up with the holy grail of sentences (short story?) to test usage of:
to/two/too; your/you're; affect/effect; there/their/they're; lose/loose; its/it's; whether/weather; then/than; bare/bear; very/vary.
I seriously think this would be awesome. Granted, I may need to get out more. :-)
Michelle
Sunday 2nd of October 2011
Love it, Robin!! Give me more sentences. It should actually be a fill in the blank 5 paragraph essay... Now that would be funny. Might have to contemplate that a bit! ;-)