Stationery vs Stationary

This one used to confuse me until I learnt a little hint to remember the difference! Read on to find out.

Stationery (noun)

Stationery is the word that refers to pens, pencils, pads and other items that we need for writing.

I’m an avid collector of stationery.

I love to buy new stationery.

Stationary (adjective)

Stationary means standing still and not moving.

The car was stationary by the side of the road.

All vehicles must remain stationary.

It’s a tricky one to remember as both words sound the same and only one letter is different so I will give you a little hint that I believe I got from Grammar Girl. If a car is stationary it might be parked up so if you think of the word park and notice that it contains ar like stationary, you can associate the two words with each other and remember that stationary means a vehicle not moving. Maybe it is parked somewhere.

I hope you’ve found this useful. Do let me know if there are two words that you find easy to muddle and I will include them in a future blog post.