Monthly Archives: July 2018

Confusing Words of the Week

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Words of the WeekIt’s time for “Confusing Words of the Week” where I take a set of two or three words that get confused and give you definitions and try to give you a memory trick to help you remember when to use which word. If you have words that confuse you, use the Ask PTB tab on the website or send an email to proofthatblog@gmail.com and they may appear here soon!

This week’s words are:

Defuse – to make less harmful

  • The officers worked to defuse the bomb

Diffuse – (v) to spread; (adj.) wordy, badly organized

  • She prepared a diffuse report of the accident
  • He wanted to diffuse the lavender in his bedroom.

Memory tips:

Defuse – to De-Fuse the situation

Diffuse – make a difference in the atmosphere (to spread) and to make it difficult to read (wordy, badly organized)

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Grammar Giggle – Specilaty Displays

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I received this from a local hotel in response to my request for information for our holiday party. At first, I only noticed that “specialty” was misspelled. Then once I started looking at it, I saw several instances of “displays serves” when it should be “displays serve.”

Hilton

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Confusing Words Of The Week

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Comments Off on Confusing Words Of The Week

It’s time for “Confusing Words of the Week” where I take a set of two or three words that get confused and give you definitions and try to give you a memory trick to help you remember when to use which word. If you have words that confuse you, use the Ask PTB tab on the website or send an email to proofthatblog@gmail.com and they may appear here soon!

This week’s words are:

  • Age – the length of time during which a being or thing has existed; length of life or existence to the time spoken of or referred to
    • He was 16 years of age.
  • Aged – having lived or existed long; of advanced age; old; of the age of
    • A girl aged 40 years.

Memory tips:

  • ageD – having liveD or existeD long
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Happy Independence Day

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banner-declaraI learned a very interesting fact while on a tour in Disneyland last week. It seems that a committee was appointed on June 11, 1776, to draft the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson took the laboring oar and did the initial draft. Forty-seven alterations were made to that draft before it was presented to Congress on June 28. Congress voted for independence on July 2–and then continued to edit the document, making 39 more edits before voting for adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4. Although Mr. Jefferson did not agree with many of those final edits, they were made and the Declaration was printed late in the day on July 4. Thus, July 4 is Independence Day, even though the vote approving independence was made on July 2.

This is how important proofreading has been in our history and I have even more respect for Thomas Jefferson. He had the most difficult job in the whole process!

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