We've written before abut how tricky capitalization can be, especially when a word or phrase is capitalized in some contexts and not in others. Such is the case with Earth, which is the proper name of our planet and a feature of many common phrases. Ahead of Earth Day tomorrow, here's what you need to know about capitalizing the place we all call home.
So just like you would capitalize Jupiter, you should capitalize Earth, but no need to capitalize it in common sayings. It's a little easier to remember the rules for sun and moon: They're never capitalized.
And if you are issuing reminders tomorrow about the three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle), remember the apostrophe.
Happy Earth Day!
❤ Team Stylebot
If someone forwarded you this email, subscribe here to get one writing tip a week in your inbox.
Want to get writing tips like these on demand? Try Stylebot for free.
Stylebot helps media professionals save time without sacrificing quality by answering editing questions on Slack and Microsoft Teams. We're on a mission to make editing faster, easier and more fun ✨ Learn more about Stylebot or follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
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.
It's hard to miss a mural that spans an entire block. It's much easier to overlook missing commas. One word would have changed the answer to last week's quiz, which most of you got right: Here's the correct sentence: "The mural, which spans the entire block, is being restored." However, if you change "which" to "that," the correct answer is none. Why? Which introduces nonessential clauses — that is, clauses that don't change the main point of the sentence. That introduces essential clauses,...
There wasn't a full moon on Halloween, but you might have glimpsed one earlier this week. Either way, you don't capitalize "moon," or "sun," for that matter. That was the first of the errors in last week's quiz. Here's the sentence again: "The full Moon was the perfect compliment to their night of trick or treating." So how many did you spot? For most of you, it was three, the same number we counted. The other two were "compliment," which should be complement, and "trick or treating," which...
Happy Halloween! We definitely didn't scare you off with last week's quiz. In fact, more of you answered than usual, and more than half of you got it right: Here's how we would write the sentence: In this day and age, it's hard to tell whose data is secure. So we count three total errors that we put into two buckets: Contractions and possessive pronouns: Possessive pronouns can be tricky because we're so used to using apostrophes for possessives. But possessive pronouns (its, hers, theirs,...