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"Peoples" is plural
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With Indigenous Peoples' Day and Columbus Day coming up on Monday, we're resurfacing last year's newsletter about the holidays. Enjoy! Monday is Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the holiday a growing list of jurisdictions recognize in place of Columbus Day. Indigenous Peoples’ Day dates back to 1989, when South Dakota became the first state to replace Columbus Day with it. President Joe Biden has officially recognized Indigenous Peoples' Day during his time in office. You’ll need an apostrophe to write the name of the holiday, but note that when you’re writing about Indigenous people, you should not use a possessive that implies they belong to a state or country. So it’s “Indigenous peoples of Mexico,” for example, instead of “Mexico’s Indigenous peoples.” Native American Heritage Month is celebrated in November, and Native American Heritage Day is the day after Thanksgiving each year. ❤ 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.
'Tis the season for confusion about apostrophes. You've probably already seen it: a holiday card from "the Smith's" or "the Lee's," instead of the properly unpunctuated "Smiths" or "Lees." In the spirit of this common seasonal mistake, we're reviewing apostrophe use today. And we have another holiday-themed reminder. The apostrophe serves a few purposes in the English language. It's used for possessives: "Jane’s favorite punctuation." It's also used for omissions: "I've been using apostrophes...
We're almost a week into the month of December, which means that you might have already cracked open a few days of your Advent calendar. The capital "A" version of the word refers to the period leading up to Christmas, which is why you should capitalize it. Usage of "Advent" goes back to at least the 12th century, while the lowercase advent, which essentially means "arrival," came into use in the 1700s. And yes, it evolved from the Christmas-themed "Advent." ❤ Team Stylebot Get a free...
It's the Friday before Thanksgiving, and with a holiday weekend coming up, we're revisiting one of our early newsletters that answers one of the most common questions we get when a long weekend looms: Is "weekend" capitalized? (And speaking of holiday weekends, we're taking next Friday off. We'll be back in your inbox on Friday, December 6.) Before we get to the writing tip, though, we want to say thank you to everyone who answered our question last week about "poor structure." If you didn't...