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Should you use “spooky” this season?
Halloween is next week, which means it’s the season of scaring. Whether it’s ghosts or spiders that creep you out, if you’re describing how you feel when you see them, you might want to avoid the word spooked.
“Spook” is of Dutch origin and was first used to mean “ghost.” But around World War II, it took on two new meanings. One of them was “spy.” The other was as a racial slur for Black people.
You’ve probably seen or heard “spook” and variations such as “spooky” enough this month to know it’s not completely off limits. But it can still be used in inappropriate or offensive ways, so it’s important to consider context, as the sociolinguist Renee Blake told NPR.
There is no shortage of synonyms for the noun, verb or adjective, including, according to Merriam-Webster, “scarify.” Now there’s a new one, even for us.
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Hone your writing skills and never use "hone in" again. Get writing tips, have fun with words and learn something new in a one-minute read each week by signing up for Stylebot’s newsletter.
Happy Friday! We’re changing it up a little bit this week. Instead of a writing tip, we have an announcement: Stylebot has been acquired by Indiegraf, the operating system for independent local media. This means that our style guide – the source of all the writing tips in this newsletter – will be available to more than 180 local newsrooms via Indie Editor, Indiegraf's built-in editing assistant. Learn more about Indie Editor here. We’ve so enjoyed bringing you writing tips every Friday, so...
Dear Stylebot subscribers, we have some important and exciting news: Indiegraf, the operating system for independent local media, has acquired Stylebot. That means Stylebot's technology is becoming Indiegraf's built-in editing assistant, Indie Editor. What that means for you: Stylebot’s products (our Slack, Teams, Chrome and Google Docs integrations) will remain operational until April 28. By the end of that day, all accounts will be closed and your access to these products will end. Refunds:...
Have you ever had to alter a draft of your writing because you confused two homophones? It's easy to do online, but harder if you're using expensive stationery. And what about those instances where you didn't even realize you were using the wrong homophone? Knowing you've been doing it wrong for years can feel like a hangar-size mistake. Any idea where we're going with this? 😉 You might have spotted three sneaky homophones in the sentences above: alter, stationery and hangar. Each has a...