Sibilance is a literary device where strongly emphasized hissing or hushing sounds are repeated throughout a sentence. These sounds are most commonly created through the use of consonants like “s,” “sh,” and “z.”
She savored the silence while shaking the snow from her scarf.
The snake snuck through the sand while slithering slowly.
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Symbolism is a literary device where characters, objects, actions, or ideas are ingrained or associated with a deeper meaning beyond the literal sense. Simply put, symbolism is the idea that things can represent other things.
Symbolism can convey abstract ideas, themes, or emotions. It allows writers to indirectly communicate complex concepts, create layers of meaning, and encourage readers to think more deeply about underlying messages within a story.
Other examples, however, are very specific and can only be understood in a specific context. For example, in the movie Citizen Kane, the word “Rosebud” refers to the protagonist’s literal snow sled he owned as a child, but it symbolizes his lost childhood and an unattainable past.
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An oxymoron is a literary device that combines two seemingly contradictory words to form an often thought-provoking concept or idea (e.g., controlled chaos and silent scream).
The two words—which tend to be next to each other in the sentence—clash in a way that forces the reader to pause and reconsider the meaning, often discovering a nuanced and deeper meaning.
The plane made a crash landing after the pilot lost control.
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The plural of mouse is mice, pronounced [mahys]. Mice is an irregular plural noun that doesn’t follow regular pluralization rules, which simply add “-s” or “-es” to the end of the singular form to create the plural form (e.g., dog/dogs and watch/watches).
He was shocked to see three mice run across the kitchen floor.
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The plural of thesis is theses, pronounced [thee-seez]. It’s a Greek-derived irregular plural noun that doesn’t follow regular pluralization rules, which add “-s” or “-es” to the end of the singular to form the plural.
All students were required to defend their theses in front of a committee of faculty members.
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Sheep is both the singular and plural form of the noun “sheep.” Sheep is the correct form whether you are referring to one sheep or many, but the verb (e.g., is or are) that follows “sheep” changes depending on whether it’s singular or plural.
The sheep are being herded by the shepherd. [plural]
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The plural of bias is biases, pronounced [bahy-uh-siz]. Biases is a regular plural noun that follows regular pluralization rules, which add “-s” or “-es” to the end of the singular form to make the plural form.
The committee discussed the political biases influencing the media.
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Dice, pronounced [dahys], is the plural form of the noun die, pronounced [dahy]. It refers to a small cube with numbered sides that typically range from one to six and is most often used to play games.
It’s a somewhat common misconception that the word dice is singular and has a plural form. The fact is that dice is the plural form, and the singular form is die.
After shaking the dice, he threw them across the table.
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There are two plural forms of the word cactus, which are cacti, pronounced [kak-tahy], and cactuses, pronounced [kak-tuh-siz]. Both forms are widely accepted, but cacti tends to be more commonly used.
Many people grow their cactuses/cacti indoors.
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The plural of axis is axes, pronounced [ak-seez.] The word axis most often refers to a central line or point around which objects rotate or are symmetrically arranged.
In geometry, we learned how to calculate distances between points along the axes.
The word axes, pronounced [ak-seez], is more than one axis (i.e., what you see on a graph). The word axes, pronounced [aks-iz], is the plural of the word axe (i.e., what you would use to chop down a tree).
You can differentiate between the two by the context of the sentence it’s used in.
Continue reading: What Is the Plural of Axis? | Spelling & Examples