Here are two sentences that recently crossed my desk:
In both cases, everyday should be every day.
Everyday is an adjective that is mostly used to describe something routine... (Read More)
Our legacy is built on finding and knowing the essential.
That’s what a leading financial company says on its website. Expertise or reputation would be more accurate than legacy, which is what you’re remembered for after you’re gone.
Or take the magazine executive who said he wanted to be sure... (Read More)
I recently read a bio that ended with the following line: He was also a contestant on the college edition of “Jeopardy!”.
I loved that quirky detail, but I wondered about the period at the end of the sentence.
You don’t need it. The exclamation point in the quoted... (Read More)
In this edition of Say It Better Say It Right, an executive of a major food company talks about teaching people to snack mindfully, that is to enjoy cookies and candy—responsibly.
Please let us know if you’re aligned to this.
That line appeared in an email about an agenda for an upcoming meeting. Its author should have written, Let us know if you agree with this.
In everyday English, align means to arrange in a line, as in, The pictures look... (Read More)
In both cases, summer... (Read More)
In both cases, around should be about, which means concerning or with regard to. I don’t know when or why it happened, but people have started... (Read More)
The Coast Guard cleared the beach because of a man-eating fish.
In that example, man-eating is an example of a compound modifier: two or more words that express a single concept to describe a noun, in this case fish.
Sometimes compound modifiers are hyphenated, and sometimes they’re not.
How to... (Read More)
One of the things I edit most are sentences that include lists of points. We cram in too many. Take, for example, this sentence from a fact sheet about a company’s expertise in data analytics for the commercial real estate industry:
Our engagements range from predicting tenant turnover, to demand... (Read More)
The Reserve Bank of Australia recently copped to printing 46 million new dollar bills with a typo. (The word responsibility, printed on the face of the bill, is missing its last i.)
Typos are one of many things you’re checking for when you proof your content. Here are some others:
... (Read More)
