USE Your Context Clues!!

BIG headlines in today's online paper: Editorial: A towering infernal, thanks to Congress

If you want readers to take you even half-seriously, do the definition and usage checking rather than assuming that a "big" word from the thesaurus makes you sound more erudite (well-educated): inferno is the word you're looking for. Next, explain how cutting off funds to finish the construction of an airport tower is either an infernal or an inferno. These are completely different words, one of which means "of or relating to the world of the dead in classical mythology" (infernal) and the other (inferno) means "hell, or any place likened to hell," which is the image you probably thought you were creating with your word choice.

Context means literally "with the words," so with the other words in this headline, infernal is really wrong and inferno is contextually incorrect, so ... find another word, perhaps one that more correctly expresses that, in your editorial opinion, not completing the airport tower may result in an airplane disaster at the local airport, and THAT disaster could well be an "inferno," which captures an intensely hot, out-of-control conflagration (fire) from which victims could, indeed, be condemned to an infernal afterlife, even though it would be more polite to suggest that they would rise to a more heavenly fate after death.

Critics of teachers who demand that students memorize vocabulary words, including prefixes, roots, and suffixes, probably do not recognize the flagrant errors so commonplace in today's writing, but some of us cringe each time we encounter these glaring errors. And don't go there and give me the old "teachers don't" critique of what education is or should be: parents are at that tiller!! Classroom standards for behavior and expectations for learning are only as strong as the parents who support them. The first parent who comes crashing into the classroom either to put the teacher in his/her place and/or to tell the principal and/or schoolboard about "my child" sets the tone for the educational program at that school and in that district.

You want more well-educated students? Let the professional educators do their job in the classroom and you do your job at your worksite. When your child complains that the teacher assigns 20 vocabulary words each week, help with the instruction and reinforcement of the learning. Perhaps, someday, rather than being embarrassed by the lack of simple vocabulary skills, you will be able to announce proudly to the world: that's my child!!