A friend received this email from a company she deals with after she called them about an issue. I understand the attempt at improving customer service, but everything is dated two years in the future! Unless those ladies in the DriveTime commercial have figured out a way to go two years into the future instead of only two minutes, there isn’t any excuse for this.
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.
I saw an interesting article recently that I thought I would share with you. It is an Above the Law article entitled “Lawyer’s Pleadings Are So Bad that Judge Orders Future Filings Must Be Reviewed By English Teacher.” (https://abovethelaw.com/2018/01/lawyers-pleadings-are-so-bad-that-judge-orders-future-filings-must-be-reviewed-by-english-teacher/) Here are the lessons I took from this article:
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:
Shown – displayed; revealed; past participle of show
The results had shown that their efforts were successful.
Shone – gave off light; did shine
The light shone directly in her eyes.
So what memory trick can we use to help remember these?
Shown is showing off something that you own.
Shone means did shine so it’s a change of one letter.
This was in a Google Alert I get. When I clicked on the headline link, it was correct there, but it obviously wasn’t in my Alert. “Brining” is to soak something in a salty water mixture to add flavor and to tenderize it. I’m sure that is not what they meant.
Another news story on my local station recently gave me this gem. The ONLY time it would be appropriate to use “Facin” without the ending “g” would be in very informal writing and using an apostrophe to indicate the “g” was missing. But, honestly, there isn’t a good reason to leave the “g” off.
My news station comes through again. This story was about a high school student who was bullied in middle school and who developed an app to help other students meet to “sit with us.” Great concept, right? But I think what the news station meant to emphasize was the “cliques” of middle school and high school. A “clique” is, according to dictionary.com, “a small, exclusive group of people.” The kind of group who would bully people and tell them “you can’t sit with us,” the “mean girl” kind of group. So while I appreciate their continuing assistance in future Grammar Giggles (I already have two from earlier this week that will come soon), I can just shake my head and wince when I see it on TV.
I saw this when shopping at Home Goods recently. At least they got it right in one place. All that copper finish must have distracted them.
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.
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:
The man fell from a hail of rifle fire.
Her grandmother was hale and hearty for 90 years old.
She was haled into court when she ignored her jury summons.
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