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Proofreading

Typo Tuesday, Week 8

Happy Tuesday! Well, by the time most of you read this, it’ll be Wednesday or later because it’s evening here in California. I have a good excuse: I had braces applied today and I had a doctor appointment, on top of the usual work and activities.

Because of that, today’s entry will be short and simple. In fact, I came across these typos while reading a short news article during my daughter’s nap. This article is about a 500 kg woman named Eman Ahmed who was flown to India for weight loss surgery. Here’s a link to the original article.

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Malapropism Monday, Week 7 — Prescribe vs. Proscribe

Happy Monday, friends! For today’s Malapropism Monday I have just a short one — mixing up “prescribe” and “proscribe.” This is one I’ve seen online and in TV closed captioning, and it’s one that spell checkers won’t catch because they’re both real words. The problem is, they have vastly different — almost opposite — meanings.

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Malapropism Monday, Week 6 — Loose vs. Lose

Happy Monday, everyone! Well, for most of us in the US it may not be the happiest of Mondays due to the “spring forward” daylight saving time that stole an hour of our sleep this weekend!

Personally, I do enjoy having more daylight in the summer, but the clock change in the spring is tough, isn’t it? Even getting the hour back in the fall doesn’t work out so well when you have young kids as I do. Somehow their little bodies don’t get the message that we can all sleep in longer.

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Typo Tuesday, Week 6

Wow, I’ve kept this up pretty well so far! I have no shortage of typos to go through but it does take time to actually make the posts and comment about the screenshots.

For today I have some simple mistakes — nothing too in depth.

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Malapropism Monday, Week 5

It’s Monday again! Exciting, right? For today’s Malapropism Monday I’d like to bring up yet another writing and speech pattern that bugs me! I know you’re dying to find out about it.

Today’s topic is the use of “try and ____” vs. “try to ____.” Did you know that these are not interchangeable? People often say “try and ____” when they should say “try to ____.” Or, at least in my opinion, they should…

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Mistakes Are the Best Teachers

A few days ago, I joined the year 2010 (only a few years late!) and made an Instagram account. It’s called, unsurprisingly, leethelinguist.

I made my first post, and what did I notice a few minutes later? A typo! I blame it on my iPhone’s autocorrect! I’d mentioned how my day job was having a technical problem on their end, so I had more time to write posts. Of course, it autocorrected to “there end,” which is something I would instantly notice anywhere! And I did notice it right away but only after I had nervously posted the photo. Before any of my *zillions* of followers could see it and criticize me, I quickly commented on the photo that autocorrect had gotten me!

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Malapropism Monday, Week 4 — Compliment vs. Complement

It’s Monday again! You know what that means, right? I still have some malapropisms left on my list, so I’ll continue with this series a while longer.

Today I wanted to focus on the use and misuse of “compliment” and “complement.” This is a pair of words that people mix up all the time, in my experience. In fact, I mentioned it in my recent post on TokyoTreat snack subscription boxes. Here’s a screenshot from their (overall enjoyable and well-done) magazine that comes in the box:

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