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Show of Force

Tomorrow is “Star Wars” Day. For the uninitiated, the informal holiday is a play on the date, May 4, and one of the franchise’s most well-known phrases: “May the Force be with you.” Now, if you strictly follow the rules, you would write “May the fourth.” That’s because the ordinals “first” through “ninth” are spelled out, then you start using numerals at “10th.” But since we use numerals for all dates, most people celebrating this holiday write “May the 4th.” You’ll sometimes see it written...

about 14 hours ago • 1 min read

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month begins next week. The month celebrates such a diverse group that there's not even one consistent name used to refer to it. Since labels such as "AAPI" are easy to reach for but can often be imprecise, we're sharing a portion of the newsletter we sent last year to mark AAPI Heritage Month. If you've subscribed to this newsletter since May 2023, this will be new. And if you've been with us longer than that, we hope this serves as a good...

8 days ago • 2 min read

Monday marks the 54th annual Earth Day, a day meant to encourage environmentalism, sustainability and climate action. To celebrate, we’re digging a little deeper on the terms climate change and global warming. The terms are often used interchangeably, but global warming is only one aspect of climate change. Global warming is exactly what it sounds like: The temperature of the Earth as a whole is on the rise. But this temperature rise doesn’t happen equally everywhere, with temperatures rising...

15 days ago • 2 min read

Thanks for participating in our eggcorn hunt a couple weeks ago. We know a lot of you found all of them, but here’s the answer key just in case: Original: He had a deep-seeded fear of jellyfish, so she knew the postponement of the scuba diving trip was, for all intensive purposes, a cancellation. She quickly began pouring over travel guides to find another way to spend their time off. Corrected: He had a deep-seated fear of jellyfish, so she knew the postponement of the scuba diving trip was,...

22 days ago • 1 min read

Parts of the United States will experience a total solar eclipse on Monday. That means the moon will be between the sun and the Earth for a brief period. It’s a rare event that won’t be visible again in the U.S. until 2044. Much less rare is inconsistent capitalization for the entities involved in this phenomenon. You often see “sun” and “moon” capitalized, even though they don’t need to be. But what about Earth? That’s a different story. Longtime subscribers might remember that we covered...

29 days ago • 1 min read

Sunday is Easter, and in honor of the holiday, we’re doing something a little different this week. We can’t take you on an egg hunt, but we can take you on an eggcorn hunt. Longtime readers of this newsletter might remember eggcorns, which are misinterpretations of common phrases. One example is writing “per say” instead of “per se.” So how many eggcorns are in the following paragraph? He had a deep-seeded fear of jellyfish, so she knew the postponement of the scuba diving trip was, for all...

about 1 month ago • 1 min read

If someone has a bad reputation, why do we say they have a “bad rap” and not a “bad rep”? After all, “bad rep” is just a shorter way of saying “bad reputation.” True as that may be, the phrase is in fact bad rap. Confused? We’re here to help. The word “rap” originated as a way to describe a punishment (think “rap on the knuckles”) and evolved to be slang for taking the blame for something. From there, it came to mean a prison sentence or criminal indictment. The term “rap sheet,” meaning...

about 1 month ago • 1 min read

When you think of today, March 15, what do you think of? It’s the day after Pi Day and two days before St. Paddy’s (not St. Patty’s) Day. And you might have heard that it’s a day you’re supposed to “beware” of. That’s right, the phrase “beware the Ides of March” refers to March 15. Ancient Romans parsed months a little differently than we do today, dividing months into groupings of days that fell between specific named days of the month: the calends, the nones and the ides. The first day of...

about 2 months ago • 2 min read

It’s OK to be confused about how to write “OK.” It’s one of the most common words in the English language, yet we can’t seem to agree on its presentation in our text. Is it two letters or four? Are there periods in the two-letter version, and can we get away with using all lowercase letters? The answer: It’s oll korrect. Let us explain. “Oll korrect” was part of the 1800s’ version of internet slang: It was fashionable in some circles to deliberately misspell phrases and use their...

about 2 months ago • 1 min read

Are you fazed by the phases of the moon? What about the phases of life? What about use of the term “unphased”? As you’ve probably guessed, today we’re discussing the difference between the homophones faze and phase. We mostly use “phase” as a noun, as you see it used in the sentences above. But it's also a verb, as in, “The company plans to phase out use of fossil fuels.” “Faze,” meanwhile, is a verb that means to disconcert or daunt. We don't use it as much as we use “phase,” though. So when...

2 months ago • 1 min read
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