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Confusing Words Of The Week

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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 [email protected] and they may appear here soon!

This week’s words are:

  • Flier – a pilot
    • Her grandfather was a flier in World War II.
  • Flyer – an advertising brochure
    • The flyer didn’t have the event’s start time.

Memory tips:

  • Flier – Remember the “i” in Flier is like the “i” in Pilot
  • Flyer – Just think about all the advertising brochures you get and how you would like to fold them into paper airplanes that look kind of like the letter “y” upside down–and they don’t need a flier
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Grammar Giggle – Lasick

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This came in an email. Since they spelled the name of the sender company “Lasick Vision Institute,” I checked to see if there was a company spelled that way. As surprising as this might be, I did not find one. What’s worse is that they spelled it correctly in the body of the email.

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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 [email protected] and they may appear here soon!

This week’s words are a different play on words and a lesson on language. A friend sent this photo to me asking if “artefacts” was correct. I told her I didn’t think it was and would use it for Confusing Words of the Week. Well, once I started researching both “artifacts” and “artefacts,” I discovered–once again–that British English is sometimes just slightly different from American English. A lot of the time it is just one letter different. So although confusing, “artifacts” and “artefacts” both mean ” a usually simple object (such as a tool or ornament) showing human workmanship or modification as distinguished from a natural object; something characteristic of or resulting from a particular human institution, period, trend, or individual.”

Memory tips:

This week’s memory tip is to remember if you are in America, spell it “artifacts,” and if you are in Great Britain, spell it “artefacts.” And be consistent if you are proofreading something that talks about “artifacts/artefacts” depending on your location and your audience.

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Grammar Giggle – Who Is Staying In Jail?

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I saw this one on Twitter. Everything is spelled correctly, nothing would trigger spell check, and free Grammarly didn’t catch it, but this headline is really unclear about exactly who will remain in jail. I mean, obviously, the judge is not in jail and Mr. Epstein is, so we can assume they are talking about Mr. Epstein, but that’s not really what it says. Read literally, the judge denied bail and will remain in jail pending trial.

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Grammar Giggle – Happy Independence Day!

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I received this email this week from a local restaurant. Email subjects are just as important as the email itself. It’s obvious they know HOW to spell “independence,” but it’s also obvious they didn’t check it before hitting send.

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