Your "weekend" guide


There’s a question that comes up among writers and editors a few times a year during a week like this one. This week, for example, it goes something like this: “Is ‘Presidents’ Day weekend’ capitalized?”

When a three-day weekend is approaching, our team has noticed over the years that people need clarification about whether “weekend” is capitalized after the holiday name. It’s come up so often that all of our style guide entries covering holidays commonly associated with long weekends, such as Memorial Day and Thanksgiving, now address the question.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the answer about each holiday weekend is the same: You should not capitalize “weekend.”

So check that off your list for all the holiday weekends this year and reserve your energy this weekend for worrying about apostrophe placement.

Have a great Presidents’ Day weekend!

❤ Team Stylebot

Get a tip, give a tip

If Stylebot's newsletter has made a difference in your work, or you just love it, show your appreciation with a tip.


💌 A tip a week

If someone forwarded you this email, subscribe here to get one writing tip a week in your inbox.

💬 Get reliable, ethical writing advice at your fingertips

Improving your writing means making better choices every day. Stylebot makes it easy with our Slack, Teams and Google Chrome extensions. Try Stylebot for free today.

📝 About Stylebot

Stylebot helps media professionals save time without sacrificing quality by answering editing questions on Slack, Microsoft Teams and Google Chrome. We're on a mission to make editing faster, easier and more fun ✨ Learn more about Stylebot or follow us Instagram, X or LinkedIn.

Stylebot

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.

Read more from Stylebot

Most of the time, subject-verb agreement comes naturally. We don't second-guess the verbs we use in a sentence such as, "I am going to the park, and she is going to meet me there." But every now and then, as with our "couple" example from a few weeks ago, it gets tricky. You showed in last week's quiz that you're clear on the rule that you need to use "either" with "or" and "neither" with "nor." (Neither "either...nor" nor "neither...or" is correct.) But the subject-verb agreement tripped you...

We're continuing our series on either and neither this week, and you did well on the first quiz: Even though you might hear people use "either side" here, remember "either" means one or the other. You might have a tree on each side, but once you're using the plural "trees," you're probably talking about both sides. All right, like we said last week, we were easing you in with that question. There are some trickier questions when it comes to "either" and "neither." Let's try this one... Which...

TGIF! If someone tells you they're not sad that the workweek is coming to a close, you'd (probably) respond with today's subject line: "Me neither." Or you might say, "Me either," but that phrase is less precise. What you really mean is, "I am not sad that the workweek is ending either," so you need the "n" to keep the negative context. That's our first lesson — or reminder — for the series we're kicking off today on either and neither. We'll ease you in with this quiz: There were trees on...