While sitting in the dentist office reading outdated magazines, I came across the word “climatic” and thought I caught a typo. Rereading the sentence, I realized the context would not have fit the word “climactic”, which is what I initially thought the publisher meant to print.
I am certain I have never used the word climatic in any sentence before writing this post. I’m not even sure I read the word before the day of my dental cleaning. However, a quick internet search turned up a number of grammar articles set on distinguishing the difference between the two words, which makes it a perfect duo for a Mean Ol’ Schoolmarm post.
Climatic…related to climate.
My iPhone’s Dictionary app verified what was already clear through the root word and context; climatic is an adjective “of or pertaining to [the noun] climate.”
Climatic warfare is a potential weapon of mass destruction.
In this sentence, climatic is the appropriate word choice as it describes manipulating the climate as a means of national defense.
The NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center preserves, monitors, assesses, and provides public access to the Nation’s climate and historical weather data.
Here “climatic” describes the type of historical weather data preserved and served up by the NOAA.
Climactic…related to climax.
Add in a singular consonant–in this case, “c”, and the entire word meaning changes.
Climactic is an adjective that means “pertaining to or coming to a climax.”
I’d say the day’s climactic moment occurred the instant she spotted a roach crawling on her keyboard.
As I have an unexplainable fear of roaches, finding one on my keyboard would certainly mark the highest or most intense point of my day.
Following its disappointingly anticlimactic alien encounter, the movie could not recover.
Using the antonym of climactic (spelled without a hyphen) makes it clear that at the movie’s major turning point (climax), when the audience expects an intense moment, the plot flops.
The Mean Ol’ Schoolmarm has a growing archive of grammar posts. Some, like this post, are simply words with a slight change of spelling. Others tackle the misuse of contractions and a misunderstanding of the words’ definitions.
What would you like to see tackled in a future Mean Ol’ Schoolmarm post?
Heather Sanders is a leading homeschooling journalist who inspires homeschooling families to live, love and learn. Married to Jeff, Heather lives in the East Texas Piney Woods where she currently home schools two of her three kids.