January 28, 2025
We’re back with another “commonly confused words” pairing! We’ve covered further and farther, that and which, compliment and complement, affect and effect, and a whole lot more. Now, it’s time to dig into much and many. If you’ve already mastered Read more…
After the whole insure vs. ensure vs. assure debacle, I started to question every similar word pairing out there. What about who vs. whom? That vs. which? Affect vs. effect?? There are a lot of word pairings with meanings that Read more…
If you’ve ever wondered what the difference is between ensure and insure, you’re definitely not alone. And to make things even more confusing, we can also throw in assure, which has a similar sound and meaning. WHY do we need Read more…
November 4, 2024
There are some English words that people absolutely HATE, like moist or fester. Other words sound very pretty—even magical—like effervescent. Then there are the very satisfying, perfectly symmetrical words that are so special, they get their own name: palindromes. What Read more…
October 21, 2024
It might sometimes seem like people just toss hyphens randomly into their writing. And with so many different rules and various situations when you do or don’t need a hyphen (even for the same word!), it’s very possible that some Read more…
Babysit or baby-sit? Common sense or common-sense? First aid, first-aid, or firstaid? There are three different kinds of compound words—open, closed, and hyphenated—and it can be tricky to keep them all straight! Overview: What Is a Compound Word? A compound Read more…
August 20, 2024
If you really stop and think about which form of “they’re,” “there,” or “their” you need, chances are pretty good that you’ll figure it out and arrive at the correct conclusion (likely by remembering your middle school English lessons). I Read more…
August 16, 2024
Back when I was a hiring manager, one of the most common red flags that would cause my co-editor and me to toss out a résumé was spelling errors. Granted, we were hiring writers, so the ability to spell-check was Read more…