All you all,
I am the WORST copyeditor for my own work. I’ll admit it and that’s because as a writer, I’m too close to it to pick out my errors, right?
That’s why it’s good to have other people read your stories before you put them out there.
Every day or everyday
What the what, right? There’s a difference?
Yes, yes, there is.
Everyday when it’s all one word is an adjective. That means it’s describing something that happens all the time.
Dreaming about manatees is an everyday occurrence for Carrie.
Every day when it’s two separate words is an adverbial phrase. Doesn’t that sound fancy and terrifying? Adverbial phrase.
It just means “each day.”
Every day Carrie dreams about manatees.
The magic apostrophe
I talk about apostrophes a lot and that’s because a lot of us just haven’t gotten the memo yet. That’s okay! Don’t be hard on yourself. Here’s the memo again.
Apostrophes have two main jobs.
Job #1 is to show that something is possessing something else. No! Not in an exorcism kind of way, but an ownership kind of way.
The manatee’s flipper was so cute.
The manatee owns that flipper. It possesses it.
Job #2 is to show there’s some letters missing because we have smooshed or contracted two words together.
So, ‘It is’ becomes it’s. The apostrophe is replacing the I in ‘is.’
Or ‘they are’ becomes they’re. The apostrophe is replacing the A in ‘are.’
A lot of us write a word and maybe that word ends in an s. We go, “AH! It ends in an s. There should be an apostrophe in there, right? I shall put one in.”
Right: Apostrophes are cute little buggers and it’s hard to resist them.
Wrong: Apostrophe’s are cute little buggers and it’s hard to resist them.
Lose it or Loose it?
These words are evil little buttfaces. It’s that double ‘o’ versus single ‘o’ that gets our brains all hooked up. Choose or chose has this issue too.
Why are those o’s so confusing? I don’t know, but I do know that when I was little, I loved to put pupils inside them and make a smiley face.
LOOSE means not tight. It rhymes with booze!
LOSE means you have lost something. You poor honey.
CHOOSE means you have to make a choice. It’s the present. It’s happening now. It also rhymes with booze!
CHOSE means you already made that choice. Are you regretting it?
Spoiler Alert: Don’t be a douchebag about other people’s grammar mistakes.
Here’s the thing: We are all human. We all make mistakes. It is not the end of the world and other humans (the good ones) shouldn’t be trolls about it. No offense to trolls. But we all have to be a little less harsh, a little less judgmental and a lot more understanding and forgiving.
If someone writes its for it’s or lay for lie? It doesn’t mean they deserve to die or get your hairy eyeball of judgement. It just means they made a mistake. It’s part of being human. And it’s okay.
BE A PART OF OUR MISSION!
Hey! We’re all about inspiring each other to be weird, to be ourselves and to be brave and we’re starting to collect stories about each other’s bravery. Those brave moments can be HUGE or small, but we want you to share them with us so we can share them with the world. You can be anonymous if you aren’t brave enough to use your name. It’s totally chill.
Want to be part of the team? Send us a quick (or long) email and we’ll read it here and on our YouTube channel.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
Email us at carriejonesbooks@gmail.com
HELP US AND DO AN AWESOME GOOD DEED
Thanks to all of you who keep listening to our weirdness on the DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE podcast and our new LOVING THE STRANGE podcast.
We’re sorry we laugh so much… sort of.
Please share it and subscribe if you can. Please rate and like us if you are feeling kind, because it matters somehow. There’s a new episode every Tuesday!
Thanks so much for being one of the 263,000 downloads if you’ve given us a listen!
One of our newest LOVING THE STRANGE podcasts is about the strange and adorably weird things people say?
And one of our newest DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE episode is about fear setting and how being swallowed by a whale is bad ass.
And Carrie has new books out! Yay!
You can order now! It’s an adult mystery/thriller that takes place in Bar Harbor, Maine. Read an excerpt here!
It’s my book! It came out June 1! Boo-yah! Another one comes out July 1.
And that one is called THOSE WHO SURVIVED, which is the first book in the the DUDE GOODFEATHER series. I hope you’ll read it, like it, and buy it!
