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Eggcorn hunt
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Sunday is Easter, and in honor of the holiday, we’re doing something a little different this week. We can’t take you on an egg hunt, but we can take you on an eggcorn hunt. Longtime readers of this newsletter might remember eggcorns, which are misinterpretations of common phrases. One example is writing “per say” instead of “per se.” So how many eggcorns are in the following paragraph? He had a deep-seeded fear of jellyfish, so she knew the postponement of the scuba diving trip was, for all intensive purposes, a cancellation. She quickly began pouring over travel guides to find another way to spend their time off. How many eggcorns did you spot? Hit reply and let us know. ❤ Team Stylebot
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Hone your writing skills and never use "hone in" again. Get writing tips, have fun with words and learn something new in a one-minute read each week by signing up for Stylebot’s newsletter.
'Tis the season for confusion about apostrophes. You've probably already seen it: a holiday card from "the Smith's" or "the Lee's," instead of the properly unpunctuated "Smiths" or "Lees." In the spirit of this common seasonal mistake, we're reviewing apostrophe use today. And we have another holiday-themed reminder. The apostrophe serves a few purposes in the English language. It's used for possessives: "Jane’s favorite punctuation." It's also used for omissions: "I've been using apostrophes...
We're almost a week into the month of December, which means that you might have already cracked open a few days of your Advent calendar. The capital "A" version of the word refers to the period leading up to Christmas, which is why you should capitalize it. Usage of "Advent" goes back to at least the 12th century, while the lowercase advent, which essentially means "arrival," came into use in the 1700s. And yes, it evolved from the Christmas-themed "Advent." ❤ Team Stylebot Get a free...
It's the Friday before Thanksgiving, and with a holiday weekend coming up, we're revisiting one of our early newsletters that answers one of the most common questions we get when a long weekend looms: Is "weekend" capitalized? (And speaking of holiday weekends, we're taking next Friday off. We'll be back in your inbox on Friday, December 6.) Before we get to the writing tip, though, we want to say thank you to everyone who answered our question last week about "poor structure." If you didn't...