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Faze vs. phase
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If you found out you didn't ace last week's commonly confused words quiz, would you be unfazed or unphased?
You might have been racking your brain to remember whether it's nerve-racking or nerve-wracking, and a vast majority of you chose the latter. And while rack and wrack each have various meanings and are sometimes used interchangeably, usage manuals are pretty clear: Use "nerve-racking," not "nerve-wracking." Why? It has to do with one of the many definitions of "rack." We broke it down in our full lesson on "rack" vs. "wrack." ❤ 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.
Your understanding of the finer points of the English language often reveals itself in your use of mundane words like was and were. That's why we have a *couple* of quizzes that cover trickier rules about these verbs. Before we break down last week's quiz, though, we wanted to remind you that today is the last day to apply to be part of Stylebot's beta-testing program. This is your chance to shape our next product to fit your needs. Apply here now. OK, so how did you do on last week's quiz?...
Were you wondering what the "1/2" meant in today's subject line, or was it obvious to you? We're back to quizzing you this week, and it's part one of two on was vs. were. The couple _______ married for 50 years before they renewed their vows. was were Thank you to everyone who shared editing challenges with us. We're using them to inspire our quiz questions. You can share yours here. And don't forget: If you want to join our beta-testing program to get a sneak peek of the new product we're...
Spoiler alert: There were no wrong answers to last week's quiz, but there's still a writing lesson to be had. We asked, "When you go back to work on Monday, how will you write time?" Technically, we were simply inquiring about what you would write. But there were still answer choices that contained incorrect options. Here's how you responded: It's a tie between 9 a.m. EST and 9 a.m. EDT. While there is definitely more than one way to write time, our style guide advises using "9 a.m." Most of...