Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Username

mightyredpen

Member Since

January 31, 2008

Total number of comments

3

Total number of votes received

4

Bio

Latest Comments

Space After Period

  • June 3, 2008, 5:27pm

For every writer who insists on putting in two spaces after a period, there is an editor sitting there deleting the extra spaces. One space, please!

perpetrating or perpetuating?

  • February 1, 2008, 10:17am

Thanks, John & Subtle Knife.

I also had a feeling that it was a play on words, given the context of the article, as my initial instinct was that it should be perpetuate and not perpetrate.

But my confusion arose when, just for fun, I Googled the expressions "perpetrate a myth" and "perpetrate a hoax" and they are quite widely used. Is it people misunderstanding the definition of perpetrate -- "to commit" -- and applying it to myth as they would to crime, as in "perpetrate the crime"? Or just using the words interchangeably?

Younger vs. youngest

  • January 31, 2008, 11:19am

I'd have to agree with Brandon on the issue of clarity. I am the oldest, but I sometimes refer to my two brothers as "my oldest brother" versus "my youngest brother" although they are both my younger brothers. However, I also find that people are confused by this and then think that my oldest brother is also my older brother.

Questions

perpetrating or perpetuating? January 31, 2008