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History in the lighting 🔥🔥
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An historical event is taking place today: For the first time, Olympic Torches will light two cauldrons during the Opening Ceremony of the 2026 games. How many errors do you spot in that sentence? The 2026 Olympics kick off today in Italy today, and yes, in a first, two Olympic cauldrons will be lit in the two host cities: Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo. That much we know. What's less clear is exactly how to write about it. We count five errors in the opening sentence of this newsletter. We'll start with the first two words. "An historical" alone counts for two of the five errors. "Historical" means any event in the past, while "historic" refers to a significant event. So today's lightings are historic. And whether you're using "historical" or "historic," you use "a," not "an." The rest are capitalization errors. Just as we don't capitalize "cauldron," you don't need to capitalize "torch" in "Olympic torch." And though it might be confusing, "opening ceremony" is lowercase, while "Games" is uppercase because it's a reference to the proper name Olympic Games. Here's the corrected sentence: A historic event is taking place today: For the first time, Olympic torches will light two cauldrons during the opening ceremony of the 2026 Games. We did a three-part series on Olympics writing tips during the 2024 Games. What did we miss that you'd like to see us cover? 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.
If you waited with bated breath last week for the Ides of March to pass, you can thank Shakespeare. We already told you that he gets the credit for the lasting power of the Ides of March as a bad omen. He's also responsible for keeping bait's homophone "bate" around in another enduring phrase. We don't use "bate" very much anymore, but it came about in the 1300s to mean "to diminish" (and yes, its origins are tied to a shorter version of "abate," which is still commonly used today)....
Today is Friday the 13th, the second one of the year. And if today's association with bad luck isn't enough for you, then look no further than Sunday's bad omen: the Ides of March. So what do we make of these two inauspicious days? The origins of Friday the 13th being unlucky are hard to pin down, though Christianity and Norse mythology regard 13 as an unlucky number of dinner guests, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica. Britannica also points to other biblical references that regard Friday...
If you've been watching hockey this season or you're gearing up for this year's World Cup, you're likely familiar with the term hat trick. And if you're not, here you go: It's when one player scores three goals in one game. It's commonly associated with hockey and soccer, but it can apply to other sports, as well as to a series of three victories. But there are no hats in soccer, and hockey players wear helmets. So why the "hat"? "Hat trick" made its sports debut in cricket. When a bowler...