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Hello Stylebot subscribers, it's Laura, Stylebot's founder. Some of you already know me and Stylebot's origin story. But many of you don't, so here's a quick version: I started Stylebot for my students at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism because I wanted them to engage with our style guide and other foundational newsroom documents as part of their daily workflow. I've spent my whole career doing newsroom innovation, and I firmly believe that in order for journalism to survive, it must evolve. Stylebot is my contribution to that. It is about taking something that's fundamental to the profession and bringing it into the next era. That's why it's truly such an honor that Stylebot is a finalist in the Next Challenge for Media & Journalism, a competition that recognizes startups that are reinventing media and journalism. You got an email from us last week about voting for Stylebot to win the Public Choice Award, but we're reminding our subscribers that public voting will close May 19. So if you'd like to vote for Stylebot, please do it this week. It only takes a couple minutes, and you can get started here. Your support means the world to us. -Laura 💬 Get reliable, ethical writing advice at your fingertipsImproving your writing means making better choices every day. Stylebot makes it easy with our Slack, Teams and Google Chrome extensions. Try Stylebot for free today.
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Stylebot
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.
Well, we failed to wreak havoc with last week's quiz 🙃 Despite the fact that the phrase is sometimes written as "wreck havoc," 80% of you got the right answer. "Wreck havoc" is an understandable mistake, because both "wreck" and "havoc" mean "destruction." But, using that logic with the verb "wreck," which means "to damage," "wreck havoc" means to damage destruction. "Wreak," meanwhile, means "to bring about," hence "wreak havoc." You didn't need the bonus points, but some of you replied to...
We don't often think of chairs as being deep. But roots? Absolutely. And therein lies the confusion between "deep-seated" and "deep-seeded." But most of you weren't fooled by last week's quiz — almost 60% of you knew the phrase is "deep-seated." So how did "deep-seeded" get planted (😉) in our minds? Well, for starters, the two phrases sound alike. Plus, "seeded" makes sense in this context. It's a classic eggcorn, a misheard phrase that sometimes makes logical sense. Some other eggcorn...
We had a tie in last week's quiz about how to punctuate the term commonly used for carved pumpkins, with 35% of you choosing "jack o'lanterns" and another 35% choosing "jack-o'-lanterns." So who's right? Let's ask Stylebot 😉 It's tedious, but we put the hyphens and an apostrophe in jack-o'-lantern. Another common format is "jack-o-lantern." "Jack o'lantern" is much less common. So who is Jack? And what's he doing with a lantern? Here's where we tell you what carved pumpkins and marsh gas have...