In before the buzzer! Or before the clock strikes midnight and my carriage turns back into a pumpkin? Whatever. It’s still Monday here for a few more minutes so I’m going to make a post!
Happy Monday, everyone! Well, for most of us in the US it may not be the happiest of Mondays due to the “spring forward” daylight saving time that stole an hour of our sleep this weekend!
Personally, I do enjoy having more daylight in the summer, but the clock change in the spring is tough, isn’t it? Even getting the hour back in the fall doesn’t work out so well when you have young kids as I do. Somehow their little bodies don’t get the message that we can all sleep in longer.
It’s Monday again! Exciting, right? For today’s Malapropism Monday I’d like to bring up yet another writing and speech pattern that bugs me! I know you’re dying to find out about it.
Today’s topic is the use of “try and ____” vs. “try to ____.” Did you know that these are not interchangeable? People often say “try and ____” when they should say “try to ____.” Or, at least in my opinion, they should…
Happy Tuesday evening! It’s time for another edition of Typo Tuesday. For this week’s entry, I’d like to present some screenshots from companies that offer proofreading and editing services. Yes, that’s correct.
I have well over a decade of experience copyediting and proofreading for two companies as well as even more experience helping out friends and family, but I haven’t done much freelance work for individuals I don’t know already. The freelance work I have done was paid hourly, but it seems that a lot of clients prefer to pay by the word or by the page. I wanted to do some research on what other freelance proofreaders charge when they charge by the unit rather than by the hour.
What I found was… interesting. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again that even proofreaders need proofreaders, and I’m sure there will eventually be errors on Lee the Linguist (if there aren’t already). However, I was rather shocked by how often I found errors on websites selling proofreading services, and even more surprisingly, on the pages where they stress the importance of having your work proofread!
It’s Monday again! You know what that means, right? I still have some malapropisms left on my list, so I’ll continue with this series a while longer.
Today I wanted to focus on the use and misuse of “compliment” and “complement.” This is a pair of words that people mix up all the time, in my experience. In fact, I mentioned it in my recent post on TokyoTreat snack subscription boxes. Here’s a screenshot from their (overall enjoyable and well-done) magazine that comes in the box:
Bonjour, mes amis! French is by far my weakest language, though I use it every day for my work! I’m able to do that because in my job I never have to speak French, and I only rarely have to write it. When I do write it, I don’t have to write long, complex passages of prose, but rather short phrases and sentences.
That said, I do read French pretty well as long as the topic is something common enough and not too full of specialized jargon. My short time of formal French study combined with my strong Spanish skills and a decent amount of independent study have made French enjoyable enough for me that I do want to continue learning more. (more…)
First of all, do you know what a “malapropism” is? It’s the misuse of a word, often similar in sound to the apropos word, which changes the meaning of the sentence to something ridiculous. See what I did there? I used the word “apropos,” which means “appropriate” or “pertinent.” The Read more…