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Replay Thursday

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Thursday ReplayIt’s time for a review of recent blog posts just in case you’ve missed them. We call this Replay Thursday. Here are posts from Proof That proofreading blog and 60 Is The New 60 blog during the past week.

Grammar Giggle – Priot, Prio . . ., Before

Grammar Giggle – Marry Christmas

Confusing Words of the Week

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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 [email protected] and they may appear here soon!

This week’s words are:

  • hail – precipitation in the form of small balls or lumps usually consisting of concentric layers of clear ice and compact snow; something that gives the effect of a shower of hail

The man fell from a hail of rifle fire.

  • hale – free from defect, disease, or infirmity; to compel to go

Her grandmother was hale and hearty for 90 years old.

She was haled into court when she ignored her jury summons.

Memory Tips:
  • hail – ice falling from the sky or something like ice falling.
  • hale – contains most of the letters in health and most of the letters in haul (as in compelling to go).
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Replay Thursday

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Thursday ReplayIt’s time for a review of recent blog posts just in case you’ve missed them. We call this Replay Thursday. Here are posts from Proof That proofreading blog and 60 Is The New 60 blog during the past week.

Grammar Giggle – Beauty Shop Deels

Confusing Words of the Week

Ask PTB – Initial Caps

 

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Ask PTB – Initial Caps

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Ask PTBA reader asked PTB “In the phrase ‘found guilty of Aggravated Sexual Abuse of a Child’ should ‘Aggravated Sexual Abuse of a Child’ use all initial caps?”

While my first instinct was that since it is the name of a criminal act under the law, it would be capitalized, when I checked on the criminal statutes of various states, they are not capitalized. I would treat it exactly as it is treated in the statute and not capitalize any of those words.

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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 [email protected] and they may appear here soon!

This week’s words are:

flack – (n.) one who provides publicity; (v.) to provide publicity

  • The press agent was called a flack.

flak – literally, debris from exploding antiaircraft shells; criticism

  • He took a lot of flak for his political stance.

Memory Tips:

I think I would remember that since flack deals with publicity, and publicity reminds me of paparazzi, which is like a flock of birds pecking at a celebrity, that I would change one letter in flock to make it flack.

Since flak isn’t dealing with publicity, it isn’t related to a flock, so doesn’t need the c.

 

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Grammar Giggle – Menus

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I went to lunch recently and saw this menu. While the proper version is “house-made,” which means something is prepared in the establishment in which it is sold, while “homemade” is something made in a home. In other words, it appears three different ways–including the correct way–all on one page. And the original error I found was “quinoa” misspelled one line below where it is spelled correctly.

Housemade

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