SNR communications associate Mekita Rivas runs a biweekly feature called “Grammar Guru.”
The Grammar Guru will give writing advice every other week to help you polish your work as much as possible. Some of these pointers will focus on common spelling mistakes, while others will delve deeper into the complexities of the English language.
The words “assure,” “ensure,” and “insure” are all related to “making a certain outcome certain,” which may explain why they’re frequently misused. Despite their similarity in pronunciation, the words are not interchangeable.
- “To insure” implies to protect against danger by paying an insurance provider on a regular basis.
She is, without a doubt, a superb technician. I’ll check in tomorrow to make sure everything is in order. Because it is required by law, you must insure your vehicle.
Do Americans use the word ensure?
When I used the word insure in a recent piece that had nothing to do with underwriting, some readers chastised me for not using the word ensure instead.
I’ll admit it. The notion that insure must only be utilized in the context of loss indemnification has never entered my subconscious mind. I’ve gone over the rules. I’ve even blogged about it, but I can’t seem to shake the notion that guarantee is the British spelling for insure.
During the Middle Ages, the verb guarantee entered the English. The first citation in the OED is from 1385. The first evidence of insurance dates back to 1440. Until the 17th century, the words assure and insure were interchangeably used to mean a number of things, including insuring someone’s life or property against loss.
Ensure was still being used in the 18th century with the connotation of buying insurance, according to OED citations: “The cost of assuring the life of a twenty-year-old man (1693).” Insure was still being used in the late 1800s in situations when the contemporary rule required ensure: “A zeal that could hardly fail to guarantee success (1862).”
The verb “usually used in the active form to express “make (something) certain” is ensure, according to the Penguin Writer’s Manual, but ensure is frequently written insure in American English.
Both The Chicago Manual of Style and The AP Stylebook recommend the difference for modern American English writers:
Ensure is a broad term that refers to making certain that something will (or will not) occur. In the best case scenario, insurance is used to underwrite financial risk. CMOS
When you mean guarantee, use ensure. To talk about a financial agreement that ensures the payment of a quantity of money in the event of loss or damage, use the term reserve insure:
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What does insured name mean?
Any person, corporation, or organization, or any of its members, who are specifically listed as an insured(s) in an insurance policy, as opposed to those who, despite being unnamed, fit under the policy definition of a “insured.”
Who’s
To summarize, the pronoun “who” is employed to denote “what or which individual or people.” For the following reasons, add the apostrophe and the s:
I’m not sure who’s a contraction. To make pronunciation easier and faster, the apostrophe stands in for a letter that is missing. Consider this: “I’m not sure who will accompany us.” When spoken aloud, it’ll probably sound like “I’m not sure who’s going.” Although the verdict is still out on going to, we’re sure you’ve heard of employing an apostrophe to indicate a missed word or sound. Don’t you think so?
Whose
Whose is a pronoun that is used in queries to determine who owns or has something. To put it another way, whose is about ownership.
Don’t be fooled: on the one hand, it’s easy to imagine that who’s (rather than whose) is the possessive form of who because grammazons designate possessive nouns with an apostrophe + s. Apostrophes, on the other hand, are also utilized in contractions. The apostrophe in who’s implies this, which is why whose is the possessive form of the pronoun.
Its is a word that means “belongs to it.”
It’s (short for it is or it has) is a contraction of it is or it has.
Whose is a contraction of who is or who has, and who’s is a contraction of who is or who has.
Who’s shoes, by the way? “Who is Shoes?” it would imply. Some people have unusual nicknames. Like the color blue. Whose clues are they? Blue’s hints
Surprisingly, the preceding line does not indicate “Who has shoes?”
you’d most likely ask, “Who has shoes?” if that’s what you’re looking for.