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Take Pride
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Capitalization is one of the writing rules that’s most inconsistently applied in English. We know to capitalize proper nouns, such as the specific names of people, places or things: Later that week, James flew to New York to see Coldplay at Madison Square Garden. Beyond that, things get fuzzy. For example, some people capitalize a person’s job title only when it comes directly before the name: She spoke to Vice President of Development Manny Sacks. Others capitalize such titles all the time: She spoke to Manny Sacks, the Vice President of Development. (For the record, we recommend only capitalizing a title when it comes directly before the name.) When you’re considering whether to capitalize something, specificity is key. One example we use in our style guide entry on capitalization notes that you capitalize the full proper name of something but not a colloquial name: He took Uses of Communication Research, commonly known as the intro to research class. Use that concept of specificity to guide you during LGBTQ+ Pride Month, which starts tomorrow. LGBTQ+ pride is a general concept that lasts year-round, while LGBTQ+ Pride, Pride Month and Pride refer specifically to events and festivities associated with the June celebration. So if you’re referring to something specifically associated with Pride Month, capitalize “pride.” If not, there’s no need to capitalize it, including pride flag. Happy Pride! ❤ 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.
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....
Happy Friday...the 13th. Most of you got the right answer on last week's quiz. Just as you spell out one through nine and use numerals for 10 and higher, you do the same for ordinals. So this month we have Friday the 13th, and next month we'll have July Fourth. You got a peek at our Google Docs extension last week, and this week we're excited to share another great review: "Style Guide Checker is a great product that provides a second set of eyes to catch things that often go overlooked. Not...