Everyday vs. Every day

• Everyday is an adjective we use to describe something that’s seen or used every day. It means “ordinary” or “typical.”
• Every day is a phrase that simply means “each day.”

Compound words, like anytime and any time, sometimes don’t have the same meaning as the individual words they comprise. It’s a case of the whole being different from the sum of its parts. Everyday and every day are like that—everyday (with no space) doesn’t mean the same thing as every day (with a space). In speech, however, they do sound the same. No wonder it’s so easy to confuse them with each other. What does each phrase mean and how do you use them?

Difference Between Everyday and Every Day

The everyday vs. every day dilemma is not an uncommon one. These two words suffer from the same problems as anytime and any time, or anyone and any one—compounds can be a source of much confusion. So let’s see how we define and use everyday and how we define and use every day.

Everyday

Everyday (as one word) is an adjective. Thesauruses list average, mundane, ordinary, and standard as synonyms. “Everyday clothing,” then, refers to the ordinary clothes you wear on regular days, as opposed to outfits designated for special events or holidays. Occasionally, people use everyday as a noun—it’s a shorthand way of referring to their everyday routines.

Every Day

Every day means “each day.” The easiest way to remember this is to think about the space separating the two words. Because of that space, “every” is simply an adjective modifying the word “day.” If you paired every with any other word, it would mean each—every day means “each day”, just like “every word” means “each word.” There’s nothing more to it.

If you’re still having trouble distinguishing between everyday and every day and you don’t know when to use which, you’ll be alright as long as you remember that in every day you can easily replace “every” with “each.” So, if you’re talking about how often you wear green pants, you’d say “I wear green pants every day. It still makes sense if you replace “every” with “each”: I wear green pants each day. On the other hand, you can’t say “I wear pants eachday” because there’s no such word.

Examples: Everyday and Every Day in Sentences

It’s sweaty foot season, so this week on Kinja Co-Op, we’re on the hunt for the best everyday men’s socks. —Lifehacker

For most Brazilians, everyday crime is a much more imminent threat than terrorism. —The New York Times

But the real point is this: You need to think and act like you are selling your business, every day. —The Globe and Mail

But people do it all across the globe every day. —The Huffington Post

 

Cannot vs. Can Not vs. Can’t—What’s the Difference?

Can’t? Cannot? Can not? Find out the right way to use all three.

Can’t is a contraction of cannot, and as such it’s sometimes unsuitable for formal writing. In everyday writing and in speaking, it’s ubiquitous:

I can’t go out until I proofread my paper.

Peter can’t believe what’s happening in front of his eyes.

Cannot is better for formal writing:

I cannot wait until Friday to get the report.

We cannot allow these obstacles to slow us down.

Don’t use can not when you mean cannot. The only time you’re likely to see can not written as separate words is when the word “can” happens to precede some other phrase that happens to start with “not”:

We can not only break even, but also turn a profit.

The company’s new product can not only reduce emissions, but also trap some of the existing greenhouse gasses.

Here is a quick summary:

• Can’t is a contraction of cannot, and it’s best suited for informal writing.
• In formal writing and where contractions are frowned upon, use cannot.
• It is possible to write can not, but you generally find it only as part of some other construction, such as “not only . . . but also.”

Examples

The 30-year-old now says she’s recovering, but there are still days when she can’t drag herself out of bed for her part-time job at a university.

Bloomberg

Jose Mourinho has warned Anthony Martial he cannot keep wasting opportunities given the intense competition in his position after the struggling Manchester United forward was dropped from the squad against Feyenoord.

The Daily Telegraph

Even commit to change publicly to encourage accountability. In this way, apologizing can not only repair a relationship, but it can also become a powerful catalyst for your own personal growth.

Harvard Business Review

Cannot and its related forms aren’t the only words in the English language that give you a choice of spelling. Axe is another one of them, as are minuscule and flyer.

Celebrate Mom with Proper Punctuation!

Happy Mother’s Day! How are you celebrating? Breakfast in bed? A handmade card? For many people, an even bigger question than what to do for Mother’s Day is where to place the apostrophe in Mother’s Day.

Some people write “Mothers’ Day,” based on the logic that it is the day to celebrate all mothers. Others simply write “Mothers Day,” leaving out the apostrophe altogether, possibly because they’re unsure of where to place it.

The correct placement of the apostrophe is this: Mother’s Day.

Anna Jarvis, who first celebrated Mother’s Day in 1908, specifically wanted Mother’s to be a singular possessive. According to Jarvis’s logic, each family ought to celebrate its own mother, instead of having the whole world celebrate mothers collectively.

Even if your Mother’s Day card has a misplaced apostrophe, chances are that Mom will understand. Take some time today to thank and celebrate the mothers in your life. Happy Mother’s Day, Moms!

Funny Phrases: Whet Your Appetite

It’s no wonder that many people misspell the phrase “whet your appetite.” After all, your mouth waters when your appetite is stirred, so why wouldn’t the phrase be spelled as “wet your appetite”?

In its most literal sense, “whet” means to sharpen like you would a knife or blade. When used in the phrase “whet your appetite,” it means to arouse interest or eagerness, to metaphorically sharpen your appetite. When your appetite is whetted, you’re hungry and ready to eat!

If you want to learn more about idioms and odd phrases, read this post about “nip it in the bud.”

“What’s Wite-Out?” And Other Products You’ll Have to Explain to Your Kids

By Laura Wallis for The Stir by CafeMom

What’s Wite-Out?

And other things your kids will ask to make you feel old

A friend recently mentioned that her child, upon picking up a landline phone, asked, “Mom, what is that sound?” It was a dial tone. The speed at which technology is advancing means that many once-basic details of everyday life are quickly going the way of the dinosaur. Here are just a few examples of things you probably grew up with, but for better or worse, your kids may never know about.

Wite-Out: What? You paint over typos? Why not just backspace?

Carbon paper: Our kids will cc plenty of people on email in their time, but real carbon copies—once the only way to make a second copy of a document you were working on—are ancient history. (Outside of our checkbooks. Wait…what’s a checkbook?)

Two spaces after a period: If you took a high school typing class in the ’80s, maybe even the ’90s, this was probably drilled into your head. Turns out, it was a relic even then of a time when typeset letters were all spaced the same distance apart and that extra space after a period was a necessary visual break between sentences. Modern typography fixed that problem long ago, and those two spaces now just look awkward and annoy editors everywhere. Your kids won’t do it. You should stop.

Paper maps: When we were kids, road trips usually meant one parent driving and the other navigating, with a huge map unfolded in his or her lap. It was a recipe for carsickness and occasionally getting lost and stopping at gas stations for directions, but it also made for some fun opportunities for exploration. Today, GPS and Google Maps and Waze have done away with all of that.

TV without a “pause” button: Remember running to the bathroom or to grab a snack during the commercial break? For kids today, their shows wait for them.

Fax machines: Outside of the occasional doctor’s office that still, inexplicably, wants documents faxed, this tech is a thing of the past. And good riddance! Faxes don’t do anything that emails and PDF documents can’t do (and without the awful sound).

Floppy disks: Like cassettes and VHS tapes, these once-essential data storage devices are mostly just hunks of useless plastic now. They might still contain information, but no one has the machines to access it anymore! Even CDs are starting to fall by the wayside, but at least they’re pretty—I recently saw a local preschool class making Christmas tree ornaments out of them.

Laura Wallis is a freelance writer and editor specializing in all things family, home, food, and health. She currently lives in New Jersey with her husband, two children, and dog—none of whom take grammar as seriously as they should. She writes for The Stir by CafeMom.