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Falling for "a while"
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If it's been, um, a while since you've reviewed the rules for a while and awhile, it's easy to get confused about when to include a space and when not to. "Awhile" is an adverb, while "a while" is a noun phrase. So in last week's quiz, the correct answer was "awhile," but most of you chose "a while": If the sentence had been, "Once they arrived, they made it clear they planned to stay for _______," then the answer would have been "a while." And that's the tip in our style guide: Use "a while" if the phrase is preceded by a preposition such as "for" or "in." Monday is the fall equinox, which means we have a season change coming up. So we have a season-themed quiz:
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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.
Every one of our newsletters is designed to give you a writing tip you can use in your everyday life. See what we did there? If you remember last week's quiz, you might already know whether or not you got the right answer. If you need a refresher, we quizzed you on the use of "every one/everyone" and "every day/everyday." And most of you got it right! You needed the two-word versions of each term to correctly complete the sentence: "Every one of them noticed the mural as they walked past it...
It's hard to miss a mural that spans an entire block. It's much easier to overlook missing commas. One word would have changed the answer to last week's quiz, which most of you got right: Here's the correct sentence: "The mural, which spans the entire block, is being restored." However, if you change "which" to "that," the correct answer is none. Why? Which introduces nonessential clauses — that is, clauses that don't change the main point of the sentence. That introduces essential clauses,...
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