When quoting, the first word of a complete sentence should be capitalized, regardless of its placement within the main sentence.
Since grade school, we’ve learned that capitalization is reserved for the beginnings of sentences, so when we see a capital letter mid-sentence, it can make us feel as though there’s an error.
Making conversation at the office can be awkward. Stay all business and you risk coming across as a buttoned-up, stuffy person who doesn’t know how to cut loose. Too nice? You might find yourself taken for granted or even passed over for promotions. And if your conversations are too casual, you may find that you’re not taken seriously. How do you strike the perfect balance when making workday chat?
A few years ago, I had to come to terms with my burgeoning habit of browsing housing rental ads on Craigslist for places in the Pacific Northwest. I’d look at the listings and wonder, What would it be like to live in Washington? Wondering soon turned to obsession, and obsession spurred research. Before I knew it, I’d made a decision—I was going to leave my ancestral home in the upper Midwest and trek two thousand miles to live near the shores of Puget Sound.
Is affective just another word for effective? Are the two words similar and entangled in the way the verbs affect and effect are? No, affective is not just another word for effective. And affective and effective are not derived from the verbs affect and effect. They come from the nouns affect and effect.
Affective is usually used in the field of psychology and addresses emotions and feelings.
Days, months, and holidays are always capitalized as these are proper nouns. Seasons aren’t generally capitalized unless they’re personified.
When humans aggregate into groups, we tend to develop new lexicons specific to our group context. Wizards complain about “muggles,” high schoolers aspire to “squad goals”—and occasionally a mid-level manager stares fervently into your eyes and tells you it’s time to “shift the paradigm.”
In recent years business jargon has somehow evolved into a tangled mess of annoying, pretentious, tired clichés that are more effective at obscuring than clarifying meaning.
Homophones are nothing but trouble. They often top the lists of commonly confused words and spelling mistakes. There’s no way of knowing what they mean unless you hear them in context or see them in writing.
