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.
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
💌 A tip a weekIf someone forwarded you this email, subscribe here to get one writing tip a week in your inbox. 💬 Get reliable, ethical writing advice at your fingertipsImproving 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 StylebotStylebot 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.
Today we're going to talk about dashes — but not that kind. The em dash has gotten a lot of attention in recent years because of its tendency to show up in AI-generated writing. Some of us who are longtime lovers of the em dash (including the humans behind this newsletter 🙋♀️) might pause before using it now, for fear of giving the wrong impression about how our writing was generated. (For the record, we still lean into the em dash, but you do you.) The en dash is a close relative of the em...
What a week! People celebrated Presidents' Day, Mardi Gras and Lunar New Year this week, all while the Olympics were happening and Ramadan began. To top it off, there was a solar eclipse on Tuesday. To mark this week, we have some event- and holiday-themed writing tips that you can use through the rest of the week and month: The Olympics closing ceremony is on Sunday. Just like "opening ceremony," "closing ceremony" is not capitalized. Remember, Team USA is an exception to the rule about...
We're going further than we've ever gone before into the difference between farther and further. Many of you have requested that we cover this commonly confused pair of words, and with good reason: "Further" is used a lot when language sticklers would use "farther." OK, so what's the difference? "Farther" is for references to physical distance, while "further" is for figurative descriptions. So to further your fitness goals, you might run farther than you did yesterday. Here are a couple of...