Here at Stylebot, we've been racking our brains to figure out how to help more people with their writing and editing needs. And a few weeks ago, we asked you what topic you'd like to learn more about. Most people who responded said they'd like advice on how to avoid common writing mistakes. So today, we're excited to share our first e-book on that very topic. It walks you through four common writing mistakes and the grammar rules you need to know to fix them. Think of it as a condensed version of this newsletter, with printable tip sheets you can use for easy reference. And it's free! Check it out and let us know what you think.
We've also shared with you our commonly confused words quiz, and if you've taken it, chances are you missed the question about racked vs. wracked. Fewer than half the people who have taken quiz have gotten that question right, so as a bonus, today we're reminding you to drop the "w" in phrases such as nerve-racking and rack my brain. You can learn more about rack and wrack in our earlier deep dive here. Thank you to everyone who voted in our previous poll about the writing topics you're most interested in. If you missed it, now is your chance to share your opinion with us.
❤ Team Stylebot
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Happy Friday! We hope you had a good Fourth of July weekend. We're back in your inbox this week with another writing quiz, and for this one we're taking it back to our quiz roots with a set of commonly confused words...with a slight twist 🔀 The committee agreed to ______ further discussion since approval was a _______ conclusion. forgo, forgone forego, foregone forgo, foregone forego, forgone If this one's too easy for you, tell us: What's an editing challenge we can help you with? We might...
One fun thing about writing is that it's both rule-based and flexible. So sometimes, there are no wrong answers. Such is the case with last week's quiz, when we asked you about the plural of octopus. Your choices were octopi (the plural that assumes a Latin origin of the word), octopodes (the proper plural for a word of Greek origin) and octopuses (the English way to pluralize it). Most of you picked "octopi," and exactly zero people chose "octopodes": No one got it wrong, and even if someone...
Today is the longest day of the year, and we can't write much more about it without revealing the answer to last week's quiz, so let's get right to it. The quiz was part vocabulary, part capitalization. We asked you to fill in the blank in this sentence: "They’re planning a party on the _______ to mark the longest day of the year." First, you had to recognize that the event marking the start of both summer and winter is a solstice, not an equinox, which marks the start of spring and fall....