When someone has forgotten your birthday, they’re likely to send you a card reading “Happy Belated Birthday.” But this is a mistake. The birthday isn’t belated; the wishes are.
Better-phrased cards read “Belated Happy Birthday.” This form treats “Happy Birthday” as a phrase equivalent to something like “Late Congratulations.” (If you sent out your holiday cards in early January you might wish someone a “Belated Merry Christmas.”) Even clearer would be “Belated Happy Birthday Wishes,” but most people seem to consider this too wordy.
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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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