Sunday, March 25, 2012

chute/shoot: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Sunday, March 25, 2012

chute/shoot
It is not uncommon to see people writing “down the shoot” when they mean “down the chute.”

A chute is a sloping channel things move down along. It comes from the French word for “to fall.”

But if you are a shipper of Chinese grocieries you could shoot cans of bamboo shoots down a chute to the loading dock.

“Chute” is also short for “parachute,” but people rarely misspell it that sense.


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