Compliment/complement
People don't seem to know when to use compliment, and when complement. They are not synonyms, first of all, and their meanings aren't especially close. Compliment means to say something nice about something--my mother complimented my new dress. Complement means to go with, e.g. the Penfolds chardonnay perfectly complemented the turkey.
You can have complementary colors, and your shoes can complement your outfit, but shoes, wine, colors, and other inanimate objects can absolutely not compliment anything else. Unless the inanimate object in question is, say, a self-esteem-raising robot, in which case it might compliment your outfit or your carpet or your cooking. e = goes with, i = praises.
I can't think of a good mnemonic device, but as I stated in a previous LPP, I don't necessarily want to make the whole world correct, just to point out its lapses.
2 comments
Reuben
1/23/2005 at 2:06 AM (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Also 'complimentary' means 'free', and 'complementary' means something like "completes". Notice my wonderful use of scare quotes, once again, to set off a word being used as an object in a sentence, and not part of the grammatical construct of the sentence itself (hint, hint, grammar grinch).
Jessica
1/23/2005 at 2:17 AM (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In standard American English, however, one does not use single quotes in that manner. One may use double quotes, italicization, or underlining to indicate what Diana Hacker, in her A Writer's Reference, refers to as "words as words," but I choose not to, as it is perfectly clear without them.