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:
- 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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It’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.
A 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?”
