Nick's Guide to Great Writing!

This material is on nuances, and shades of gray. While it is included in the writing section of my homepage, it is useful for speakers and general students of English, both native and non-native learners of English vocabulary.

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Level of difficulty
1 elementary
5 intermediate
9 advanced

interesting, interested, boring, bored, challenging, challenged

...

2 - 4

Explanation, discussion and example(s):

In this lesson let's look at

interesting vs. interested,
boring vs. bored, and
challenging vs. challenged.

These pairs are similar, and often misused by many students. Please study the following for meanings and examples:

Interesting, boring and challenging are adjectives used in a more active sense Interesting = holding the attention or arousing interest Boring = to cause to feel boredom Challenging = arousing competitive interest, action or thought; difficult
I find Science Fiction books very interesting.	My friend Mike is one of the most interesting people I know.
I can not understand why everyone does not find professional sports as boring as I do.	The statistics lecture was so dry and boring the students fell asleep.
I find it very challenging to learn a new language.	Some mornings it is very challenging to get out of that nice warm bed in a freezing Japanese apartment.
Interested, bored and challenged are also adjectives with a slightly different meaning Interested = having the attention engaged or being affected or involved Bored = feeling boredom Challenged = having a disability or deficiency
I am interested in Science Fiction books		I was very interested in what he had to say about his new play.
If I have to watch a professional ball game for more than 2 seconds I get very bored.		The students were so bored by the statistics lecture that they fell asleep.
I guess I must be linguistically challenged.		Today in America many people do not like to call a thing by its right name; people are not handicapped, they are challenged. I am not fat, I am weight challenged. I am not balding, I am hair challenged. I am not white, I am melanin challenged.

Note(s):

Exercise(s):

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Nick's Guide to Great Writing!

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