yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Hear/here and accept/except | Frequently confused words | Usage | Grammar


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

Hello grammarians! Today, we're going to talk about two sets of frequently confused words: hear and here, and accept versus except.

These words are pronounced very similarly to one another, but they have very different meanings. So, what I'm going to try and do is define these words for you and then come up with mnemonic devices—memory aids—to help you keep them straight.

The word "hear" (h-e-a-r) is a verb, and it means to listen to, to sense something with your ears. The word "here" (h-e-r-e) is an adverb, and it signals that something is close by.

So, an example for the verb "hear" is to say, "I hear, I don’t know, bird song. I hear bird song! Oh, so lovely! There's our beautiful bird; there's its beautiful song, and we're hearing it now."

In order to remember that h-e-a-r involves listening, I like to point out that it actually contains the word "ear," the very device that we use to hear things in the first place. That's a human ear! Alright, there’s your earlobe, eutragus, your scaphoid fossa—parts of the ear.

So, just remember that "hear" contains the word "ear."

Now, "here," the adverb, let’s use this in an example: "The secret treasure should be right here." To keep this one straight, I like to remember that "here" rhymes with "near," which is what it means. Right? When something is here, it's directly next to you or near you.

So, for "here" with an "a," there’s an "ear" in it too, but with "here" with an "e," it's its nearness to you.

Next, the words "accept" and "except." These are pronounced very slightly differently. So, "accept" here is a verb, and it means to go along with or to receive; as in, "I accept this gift in the name of Spain."

"Except," on the other hand, is a conjunction and a preposition, which can kind of be used the same way that "but" is used—sort of in an everything-but way. So, for example, "I like every vegetable except zucchini," which isn't true; I like zucchini a great deal! But you can see how it's being used like "but." It’s kind of exclusionary, which is how we're going to tell the difference between these two words.

This gives us the basis for our mnemonic. So, remember that "accept" is spelled e-x-c-e-p-t, which is also the first three letters of a similar word: "exclude."

So, "accept"—exclude stuff! And "accept" is spelled a-c-c-e-p-t, so we're going to say that's very similar to "access."

So, "accept" with an "a" brings something in, and "except" with an "e" keeps something out.

You can learn anything! David out.

More Articles

View All
Does the president's party usually gain or lose seats at the midterm elections? | Khan Academy
Does the president’s party usually gain or lose seats at the midterm elections? It’s a pretty strong historical trend that the president’s party loses seats in the presidency. So, that’s particularly the case in the House of Representatives. Since the Ci…
The Rules for Rulers
[Ominous music plays] Do you want to rule? Do you see the problems in your country and know how to fix them? If only you had the power to do so. Well, you’ve come to the right place. But before we begin this lesson in political power, ask yourself: why d…
Zeros of polynomials: plotting zeros | Polynomial graphs | Algebra 2 | Khan Academy
We’re told we want to find the zeros of this polynomial, and they give us the polynomial right over here, and it’s in factored form. They say plot all the zeros or the x-intercepts of the polynomial in the interactive graph. This is a screenshot from Khan…
How These Female Cavers Recovered New Human Ancestor Fossils (Exclusive Video) | National Geographic
Six remarkable young scientists squeeze through a 12 m crawl down a shoot 18 cm wide to get these fossils of a new species of early human ancestors, homon edti. It’s really unusual to see all women scientists in these kinds of situations where you are exp…
How much money you actually need..
Money. Our lives revolve around it. We all want it. We know we all want it. Most of it doesn’t even exist beyond the heavy-duty servers of some bank, and yet the pursuit continues for this elusive thing. Despite its presence in everyday life, despite the …
Reading (and comparing) multiple books | Reading | Khan Academy
Hello readers! You know what’s better than reading a book? Reading two books! Reading a bunch of books! Reading a mountain of books! This may sound self-evident, but great readers read a lot of books. Good readers read widely. They read lots of different …