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Intercalary day is coming up
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Every four years, we add a day to our shortest month to make up for the fact that it really takes Earth a little more than 365 days to orbit the sun. The year is, of course, called leap year, with February 29 being leap day. But what, exactly, is leaping? It would be more accurate to call February 29 “intercalary day,” but that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. The name is likely inspired by the effect of leap day on the months that follow: It means that dates on the calendar leap ahead two days of the week instead of one. So if your birthday is March 1 or later and was on a Friday last year, it will be on a Sunday instead of a Saturday this year. Maybe it should be called “skip day” instead? 🤔 Whether or not the names “leap day” and “leap year” resonate with you, they shouldn't be capitalized. What are you doing with your extra day this year? 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.
Happy 2026! Even though it's a new year, we're continuing the wrap-up of our quiz series with the answers to our trickiest questions. Before the holiday break, we reviewed the phrase nerve-racking. Now, we're onto whoever vs. whomever. Well, that was the fill-in-the-blank in the quiz question. But the lesson is really about subjects and objects and noun clauses. Here's the question that tripped up most of you: So "whomever" is the correct answer there, but it's not as simple as just using...
The end of the year is approaching, which means it's wrap season. Gift wrapping, sure, but also the time of year when we get wrap-ups of our habits and behaviors. If you answered our quiz questions this year, you can pat yourself on the back: There were only a few questions that a majority of quiz respondents got wrong. Great work 👏 We're wrapping up our quiz series with a look back at those trickier questions and reviewing the lessons, starting with the one that tripped up the most people:...
We're back after the Thanksgiving break to revisit one of our first holiday-themed newsletters from 2022. Hope your holiday season is off to a good start! Now that we got our “Yule” pun out of the way in the subject line, here’s where we let you know that even though you’ll see both “Yule” and “yule” this holiday season, we recommend capitalizing it both on its own and in “Yuletide.” (And if you see it all the time and wonder what it really means, it’s basically a synonym for “Christmas.”) No...