Assure ensure insure grammar girl book

Assure, ensure, insure grammar goddess communication. A note to teachers and parents we at want to help make teaching english grammar and punctuation less stressful during this potentially difficult period when many students are sheltering in place and schools. All three words share an element of making an outcome sure, and you can exchange these. Assure, ensure, insure, and one mean old shark grammar party. Assure vs ensure there is a very clear difference between assure and ensure when it comes to their usage and meaning. Therefore, ensure the tradition of excellence is a better choice. Assure, ensure, and insure are three words people sometimes confuse. Choosing between ensure, assure, and insure is something that gives first language english speakers a hard time, but the two words are actually very different. Grammar police tackle ensure, insure the morning call.

I found this tip on grammar girl s website in a post called assure versus ensure versus insure. Assurance is the guarantee that something will happen however insurance is the policy that covers up any losses. The object of the verb is always a thing, never a person. If you insure him, then youre taking out a policy on his life. Insure, ensure, or assure these three words have distinct meanings. If you are taking action to guarantee the result you want, use ensure. A neat trick from grammar girl is to remember guarantee has two es so you use ensure. Three oftenconfused verbs assure, ensure, and insure all mean roughly to make secure or safe or certain. Voa learning english presents news, features, audio, video and multimedia about the u. The words assure, ensure, and insure are among the common terms that are often misused. I will cover the functions, definitions, and grammar behind each word, so you can understand their differences and use them properly. On its path from latin through french and into english, securus became simplified and took on a variety of prefixes, thus leading to the confusingly similar english verbs assure, ensure, and insure. I bet you thought grammar couldnt get any more quick and dirty than it did in the previous pages, but heres the quickest grammar of all, culled from.

Assure is to change feelings, ensure is to prevent bad things from happening, insure is to have a way to fix things if they go bad. Mauricio saved money from every paycheck to assure ensure insure he could buy gifts for his family at the end of the year. If a contract stipulates that the individual must insure something the. Strictly speaking, it is incorrect to use insure and ensure interchangeably. To insure something or someone is to cover it with an insurance policy. Learn the definitions of insure, assure, and ensure, and when to use them. Ensure is to make certain that something will happen.

Also derived from securus are the english words sure, assure, secure, and security. But i certainly feel that therere splitting into different meanings in american usage. With those definitions, i think three verbs assure, ensure and insure can fit the blank. Ensure definition in the cambridge english dictionary. Covering the grammar rules and word choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers, grammar girl makes complex grammar questions simple with memory tricks to help you recall and apply those troublesome grammar rules. Well go through what they mean, and how to use them. Though they look and smell the same, their meanings are fairly different. Ensure means to do what is needed to create a specific outcome.

Assure means to give comfort or confidence to someone. It means to make certain, to guarantee, or make sure something does or does not happen. In a sentence, assure will generally precede the object that you are assuring, as in, the mother assured her daughter that the loud thunderstorm would not hurt her. In my book woe is i, i used this sentence to illustrate the traditional differences among them. Keep reading and practicing in the comments to insure against unfortunate errors in your writing.

Grammar girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing. To assure is to tell someone everythings ok, to ensure is to make certain, and to insure is to protect financially. The grammar girl website explains that the words ensure, insure and assure. The question of whether to use insure or ensure or assure has plagued the english language for years. If you ensure that something happens, you make certain that it happens. Home english grammar ensure vs insure short explanation with simple examples. The three verbs are very much related to each other as all three of them deal with guaranteeing on thing or another. Ensure means to make certain that something will happen. Assure refers to the act of removing insecurities by guaranteeing that something will happen. After reading this post, i can assure you will never misuse ensure vs. Get grammar girls take on assure versus ensure versus insure. Even though they can be synonyms, one way to make sure of correct usage is to use insure to relate to financial matters and ensure in the broader meaning of making certain or safe.

Of course no one wants to say thomas jefferson was wrong. Ensure means you are going to make sure something does or does not happen, and dont you dare mess it up. The short answer is insure is limited to the financial product we buy to limit our liability. Today, i want to clear up that confusion and outline the unique characteristics of each of these words. Insure means to safeguard against loss or damage, typically through the purchase of insurance to do so. Choose your words although these three often show up at the same party, giving hugs, theyre not the same, thank you very much. David ensured his success by keeping complete notes on the process. In fact i ended up here today because i ran across a cnn article that used insure incorrectly at least according to my education, and i wanted to see what the grammar police had to say about the issue. Ensure is subtly different from assure, and people often confuse the two. His latest book ensured his success as a novel writer. Heat the oven for 10 minutes to ensure its hot enough for your roast.

Assure means to guarantee or to say something with confidence. When you get down to it though, there is an easy way of separating the two. Assign each word a oneword definition to make it easier to remember which of the three words to u. Also, insure is typically reserved for financial meanings. And as you note, ensure and insure have much in common. A coworker points out that the founding fathers used insure incorrectly. This may be attributed to how all three words can be associated with the sureness of an outcome. For example, i insure my jewelry because many of the pieces are family heirlooms. It always grates on me when i see insure used where ensure would be a better fit.

To ensure something is to make sure it happensto guarantee it. Grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing by. I found this tip on grammar girls website in a post called assure versus ensure versus insure. Grammar police tackle ensure, insure, writes morning call columnist bill white. The act of assuring is the act of dispelling doubts. American heritage talks about all three in the same usage note. Especially in american english, what you insure is a business transaction. Grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing. However, you can easily avoid confusion by remembering their distinct uses. All three verbs have something to do with making sure and are therefore similar. If a that clause follows the verb, you must use ensure. Heres what you need to know in the battle of insure vs. Ensure vs insure short explanation with simple examples.

Only people can feel anxious or doubtful only they can be assured. Get grammar girl s take on assure versus ensure versus insure. Some sources note that people use assure, ensure, and insure interchangeably. The airport management took steps to ensure the safety of the passengers. Grammarly can save you from misspellings, grammatical and punctuation mistakes. Cindy used the teleprompter to ensure that she would remember her speech completely. The words assure, ensure, and insure are among the common terms that are often misused and interchanged. But well keep posting articles like this to ensure you understand all its ins and outs. To ensure is to do or have what is necessary for success. Insure makes the distinction that the definition of ensure is to make sure something will or wont happen, whereas insure means to issue an insurance policy.

I assure you that its best to insure your rental car to ensure we have a safe and protected road trip to area 51. All three verbs have something to do with making sure and are therefore similar, but each of them has a distinct meaning that makes it better suited for some uses than the other two. What you ensure results from your personal efforts. The three words, assure, ensure, and insure, are often confused.

According to associated press style, to ensure that something happens is to make certain that it does, and to insure is to issue an insurance policy. Assure, ensure, and insure have the same underlying meaning, but they each have a slightly different use. Insure deals with insurance, protecting something or. Theres a large overlap between insure and ensure when it comes to their definitions, and many people find it hard to differentiate the two. The constitution and its preamble were written in 1787, and the language, capitalizations, and spellings reflect the usage of the day. Other authorities, however, consider ensure and insure. To assure a person of something is to make him or her confident of it. I came across a great teaching tip from charles carson to help your students remember these terms.

Clear explanations of natural written and spoken english. Insure means to protect against risk by regularly paying an insurance company. Ensure means to make sure or to guarantee and insure refers to the financial service of insurance. Grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing book. We ensured the success of the plan after we assured the chairman that the property would be insured. Insure the three words, assure, ensure, and insure, are often confused. I need to insure my car with a new line of coverage. All three words share an element of making an outcome sure, and you can exchange these words with each other in some instances. The words assure, ensure, and insure like to pretend that they are a lot more alike than they actually are. I assure you, said the grieving widow, i ensured he was insured to the hilt.