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 who vs whom
Who vs. Whom

 

Good news for those who feel stuffy saying 'whom.'

play videos pictures in the dictionary
Pictures in the Dictionary

 

The story of those iconic illustrations.

play alright allright video
Alright vs. All Right

 

Is 'alright' all right?

play ismo merriam webster tip
Some Odd Words with ISMO: "People Tipping"

 

Comedian ISMO on the complexities of the word 'tip'

play video old school grammar humorsome
Old-School Grammar

 

Many of today's grammar rules can be traced to the opinions of one 18th century writer.

play video how a word gets into the dicionary
How a Word Gets into the Dictionary

 

What our editors are looking for when they enter words in Merriam-Webster.