ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by mature storms. Though dropping frogs and

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fish on people seems pretty immature to us.

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How would you correct this underlined segment from the passage, if at all?

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identifiable

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And here are the potential answers...

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This sentence is in bad need of the correct adjective to describe the noun "funnel."

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(Quick reminder: nouns are words that represent people, places, and things, while adjectives

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are the words that describe them.)

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The purpose of the paragraph in which the sentence appears is to help the reader know

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the stages of a tornadic waterspout. Huh, you never know when that might come in use.

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So, we're looking for the adjective that best conveys this idea.

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Choice (C) suggests the word "expected," but this really isn't the best answer. Yeah, the

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funnel might be expected after the sequence of events the paragraph describes...

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But this adjective doesn't convey the idea that the sentence is geared toward helping

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the reader recognize waterspouts.

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Choice (B) thinks "ordinary" is the right answer, but we can't agree. Describing the

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funnel as "ordinary" makes it seem like these waterspouts happen everywhere on a daily basis.

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We're glad this isn't true, because it would really put a damper on our beach time.

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And then there's choice (A), which offers the word "identifiable." We can see why someone

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might go for this one, since the funnel is identifiable, meaning that when someone looks

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at it they can say what it is.

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However, we're more in the market for a word that conveys that the funnel is typical of

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a waterspout, not that they're generally recognizable.

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This best answer is (D), which does just this with word "characteristic."

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Flinging frogs and fish everywhere? These waterspouts are real characters all right.

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