play hanger-hangar-illustrations
Commonly Confused

Is It 'Hanger' or 'Hangar'?

How to remember which is which


Editor Serenity Carr breaks down hanger vs. hangar with a simple trick to keep them apart.

Transcript

Hanger. There's the one for clothes and the one for airplanes. They sound the same but are spelled differently. One ends in er, the other ends in ar. So how do you remember which is which? The airplane hangar ends in ar, which is one letter short of air.

Up next

play hanger-hangar-illustrations
Is It 'Hanger' or 'Hangar'?

 

How to remember which is which

play video schwa
The Schwa

 

The most common vowel sound in English causes many spelling problems.

play video websters video of 1864
Webster's Dictionary of 1864

 

The landmark edition that transformed the way dictionaries are made.

play emily-brewster-with-the-words-effect-affect-on-screen
How to Remember 'Affect' and 'Effect'

 

A simple way to keep them apart. (Most of the time.)

play video title words of the year 1066
Words of the Year: 1066

 

English was never the same after the Norman Conquest

play contractions
On Contractions of Multiple Words

 

You all would not have guessed some of these

play semantic bleaching text on white background
What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'?

 

How 'literally' can mean "figuratively"