Thursday, August 6, 2015

hold your peace/say your piece: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Thursday, August 6, 2015

hold your peace/say your piece
Some folks imagine that since these expressions are opposites, the last word in each should be the same; but in fact they are unrelated expressions. “Hold your peace” means “maintain your silence,” and “say your piece” means literally “speak aloud a piece of writing” but is used to express the idea of making a statement.


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This is the tenth year of the Common Errors in English Usage calendar. To celebrate, we are bringing back some of our favorite interesting, funny, but sometimes merely silly entries through the years before going on hiatus in 2016.

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