ordinance/ordnance: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Thursday, April 30, 2015

ordinance/ordnance 
A law is an ordinance, but a gun is a piece of ordnance.


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by/’bye/buy: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Wednesday, April 29, 2015

by/’bye/buy
These are probably confused with each other more often through haste than through actual ignorance, but “by” is the common preposition in phrases like “you should know by now.” It can also serve a number of other functions, but the main point here is not to confuse “by” with the other two spellings: “’bye” is an abbreviated form of “goodbye” (preferably with an apostrophe before it to indicate the missing syllable), and “buy” is the verb meaning “purchase.” “Buy” can also be a noun, as in “that was a great buy.” The term for the position of a competitor who advances to the next level of a tournament without playing is a “bye.” All others are “by.”

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This is the ten-year anniversary 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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Shepard/shepherd: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Shepard/shepherd
“Shepard” can be a family name, but the person who herds the sheep is a “shepherd.”

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This is the ten-year anniversary 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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revue/review: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Monday, April 27, 2015

revue/review
You can attend a musical revue in a theatre, but when you write up your reactions for a newspaper, you’re writing a review.

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This is the ten-year anniversary 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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playwrite/playwright: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Sunday, April 26, 2015

playwrite/playwright
It might seem as if a person who writes plays should be called a “playwrite” but in fact a playwright is a person who has wrought words into a dramatic form, just as a wheelwright has wrought wheels out of wood and iron. All the other words ending in “-wright” are archaic, or we’d be constantly reminded of the correct pattern.

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Happy birthday, William Shakespeare (1816).

This is the ten-year anniversary 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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how come/why: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Saturday, April 25, 2015

how come/why
“How come?” is a common question in casual speech, but in formal contexts use “why?”

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This is the ten-year anniversary 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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right of passage/rite of passage: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Friday, April 24, 2015

right of passage/rite of passage
The more common phrase is “rite of passage”—a ritual one goes through to move on to the next stage of life. Learning how to work the combination on a locker is a rite of passage for many entering middle school students. A “right of passage” would be the right to travel through a certain territory, but you are unlikely to have any use for the phrase.

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This is the ten-year anniversary 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.

Enjoy the calendar? Buy the book!