Here’s a goof I see all the time. It doesn’t help that the two words are pronounced the same and only differ by two letters, but they have very different meanings. The two meanings can even have serious legal significance, so ignore them at your peril.
Principal as a noun has two meanings: an administrator, e.g. principal of a school; or a sum of money, e.g. principal of a loan.
Principal as an adjective means “primary” or “most important,” e.g. “The principal reason we are firing you is your refusal to wear pants.”
Principle is a noun, meaning “rule” or “maxim,” e.g. “I will not wear pants, because to do so would violate my principles.”
A guide some of us learned as kids is to think of the principal as your pal. That only covers one possible definition, but it’s a start.
Photo credit: ‘PRINCIPLE PRINCIPAL’ by Amuk, via Cheezburger.
Sadly Amuk missed the mark with the image of James Tolkan as Gerald Strickland in
Back to the Future. A more appropriate image would have been Jeffery Jones as Edward Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Wasn’t Rooney the “Dean of Students” at Ferris’ school? My high school didn’t have deans, so I’m not sure how that would work.
Thank you for demonstrating the importance of providing photo credits in blog posts. Now people know where to direct their complaints 🙂
Gerald Strickland was the “discipline officer,” most likely a vice princiPAL.