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On land or at sea?
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Did you see any flags flying at half-staff on Memorial Day? What about at half-mast? These terms are often used interchangeably to describe flags that are flown only halfway up the flagpole, and the answers to last week's quiz on the terms were pretty evenly split. We probably should have added an "it depends" answer choice, though. Everyone technically got it right, but we recommend using "half-staff" as the default term, as it's what's used for flags on land. Reserve "half-mast" for flags on ships or at naval installations. We asked you in the fall about the most common writing mistakes you make and/or correct. One of the top choices was passive voice, and we're excited to share the reviews for the passive voice checker in our Google Docs extension are in. Here's what one person had to say: "The passive voice checker is hugely valuable to me. It caught the phrases I overlooked, which helped me quickly write in a clearer way!" Try the extension for free by signing up on our website, and remember that educators get a discount through June 30. Just use code SUMMER2025 at checkout. This week, we're trying something new with the quiz. As always, you can tell us what you think here.
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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.
Dangling modifiers creep into our speaking and writing all the time, but you all are pretty good at spotting one 🧐 If you didn't take last week's quiz, you might be thinking, "What are dangling modifiers and how can I avoid them?" Dangling modifiers occur when a sentence begins with an adjectival modifier but the subject of that modifier is misplaced in the sentence or simply isn't there at all. Longtime newsletter readers will be familiar with our favorite high-profile example that's easily...
To write the phrase do's and don'ts, you need to create your own list of do's and don'ts. Do you, for example, stay consistent on apostrophe use, or do you instead insert an extra apostrophe for clarity? You can see that we opt for the latter, but that's not what you prefer. The vast majority of you who took last week's quiz like "dos and don'ts." We can relate. As longtime newsletter readers know, one of our pet peeves is when people unnecessarily add an apostrophe along with the "s" to make...
If you picked "whomever" in last week's quiz, why did you do that? "Well," you might have said to yourself, "whomever is for objects." That's true. But consider this sentence: The boss said she'll recommend whoever/whomever performs best. Would you make the same choice? We can get two lessons out of last week's quiz. There's subjects and objects: Subjects carry out the verb of a sentence, while objects receive the action of the verb. In the sentence, "She will recommend him," "she" is the...