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Is It Farther or Further?
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Understand the Possessive and When to Use It
Here’s a common writing mistake you need to be aware of. In this instance, the mistake was exemplified in an Apple News pre-Independence Day post that opened like this: This weekend’s celebrations will look very different from years past…. Can you spot the error? The writer is comparing “celebrations” to “years past.” As it so happens, these two items always look different because one of them is a group of celebrations and the other is a group of years! What the writer was trying to say was This weekend’s celebrations will look very different from celebrations of years past…. But the writer didn’t say that. Sure, maybe we can figure out what the…
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Fewer or Less?
So, you’re in a check-out line in a grocery store. You have seven items in your cart. You count them, because – above the checkout conveyor – you notice a sign: 12 ITEMS OR LESS, the sign advises. Then the realization hits: “I HATE THIS PLACE,” you scream and, with dozens of shoppers looking on, you throw everything in your cart every which way and stalk out of the store, now yelling “THE WHOLE WORLD IS GOING TO HELL!” The problem? The sign should have read, 12 ITEMS OR FEWER, a mistake not made in Safeway stores, I’m told. Assuming something like this hasn’t yet happened to you, it could…
