by Amy Haagsma; review of seminar Usage Woes and Myths with Frances Peck (offered by EAC-BC on April 12, 2014)

Although an EAC member for almost a year, I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to attend one of EAC-BC’s professional development seminars. Usage Woes and Myths with Frances Peck caught my attention right away, as I had learned a lot from Frances through her courses at Simon Fraser University. It initially occurred to me that I might not need the seminar, as I thought I had a pretty good grasp of word usage, but as I started reading the description I realized how wrong I was.

“You’ve sorted out imply and infer.” (Check!)

“You know it’s not all right to use alright.” (It’s not?)

“But what about more troublesome usage points, like the difference between may and might?” (Hmm. I may [or is it might?] need to take this seminar after all.)

“Or such commonly misused words as dilemma and fulsome?” (What’s a fulsome?)

“Is it true that you should always change though to although, till to until?” (I definitely need to take this seminar. Sign me up!)

“Is impact now officially a verb?” (Stop the madness!)
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