Than Vs. Then–What’s the Difference?

Two acquaintances who share many of the same features may be difficult to distinguish from one another. How can you tell them apart? One way is to get to know them better. Even identical twins have unique characteristics in their physical appearance and personality. A lot of people make errors with the nearly identical than/then pair, but you don’t have to be one of them. Just use the same strategy you use to tell one person from another—get to know them!

When to Use Than

A conjunction is a word that connects two clauses or coordinates words in the same clause. Than is a conjunction used to introduce the second part of an unequal comparison. It also introduces the rejected choice in expressions of preference. Finally, than can mean “except” or “when.”

Amanda is shorter than Annabelle is. She would rather die than wear high heels.

Than can also function as a preposition. A preposition connects a noun or pronoun to a verb or adjective in a sentence, usually to express a spatial or temporal relationship. As a preposition, than means “in relation to” or “by comparison with.” Here’s a (technically correct) construction you may not have seen before:

Annabelle is a friend than whom there is none more caring.

Than appears in a lot of idioms. Many of them, such as “more fun than a barrel of monkeys” or “more dead than alive,” feature comparisons. You’ve probably heard some of the most popular ones (e.g., “easier said than done,” “better late than never”) but many may be new to you. For example, have you heard of “more sinned against than sinning”? Wouldn’t it be a fun project to find out how these colorful expressions started?

When to Use Then

Then often functions as an adverb. Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. Dictionaries define then lots of different ways: in that case, at that time, next in order of place or time, at the same time, soon afterward, in addition, or as a consequence.

Standing next to Edwin is Ethan, then my roommate Claire, then me. Edwin told me, “If we are having fun together, then you should take lots of photographs.” There were no digital cameras then!

Sometimes, then is an adjective or a noun. As an adjective, or describing word, it means “being such, existing, or being at the time indicated.” As a noun, it means “that time.”

My then roommate Claire moved out and I have not seen her since then.

Then appears in some idioms too. One means “on the other hand”: Edwin is funny, but then I laugh at everything. Another idiom means “at that exact time and place, or at once”: Ethan asked me if I wanted to take a road trip, and I went home to pack my suitcase right then and there.

Then and than have many similar characteristics. They are spelled alike, except for the E in then and the A in than. However, telling them apart is not impossible. They have different characteristics: How you define than is definitely not the same as how you define then! They have different “personalities” in that they function as different parts of speech. Do you feel that you know them better now?

Participle

What’s a Participle?

A participle is a form of a verb that can be used as an adjective or combined with the verb to be to construct different verb tenses.

Present Participles

In English, all present participles end in -ing. In most cases, if the base form of a verb ends in a consonant, you simply add -ing. Walk becomes walking, eat becomes eating, think becomes thinking, and so on. If the verb ends with a silent -e, the -e is usually dropped before -ing is added. Move becomes moving, consume becomes consuming, meditate becomes meditating. For verbs that end in -ie, the -ie usually changes to -y before the -ing is added.

Present participles are also sometimes called gerund participles.

Past Participles

Most past participles are formed by adding -ed to the base form of a verb (or just -d if the verb already ends in -e. Walk becomes walked, move becomes moved, and so on. However, there are a handful of verbs with irregular past participles. Some common ones include think/thought, eat/eaten, go/gone, do/done, and feel/felt.

Combining Participles with to Be

Present participles combine with the verb to be to form certain verb tenses. The past continuous, present continuous, and future continuous tenses combine the verb to be with present participles:

I was walking. (past continuous) I am walking. (present continuous) I will be walking. (future continuous)

Past participles combine with the verb to be to create the passive voice. In a passive voice construction, the grammatical subject of the clause receives the action of the verb. Someone or something else performs the action.

The pie was eaten by Rodney. The test was passed by the whole class. The movie was watched by people around the country.

Why Do We Say ’Tis the Season?

If you’ve seen the classic holiday movie, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, then you’ll probably remember this scene. Family man Clark Griswold stands at the lingerie counter of a large department store chatting up the pretty sales girl. After bumbling through the conversation and making a fool of himself, he smiles and says, “‘Tis the season to be merry!”

But where did ’tis the season, a phrase we use during the festive build-up to the end-of-year holidays, originate?

The history of ’tis the season

’Tis the season evokes the quaint, archaic language we associate with holiday stories like A Christmas Carol. Although Ebenezer Scrooge suggested that anyone who went around wishing others a Merry Christmas should be “boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart” (geez, dude—chill!), he may not have had an opinion of ’tis the season. It’s possible the phrase first appeared in a song written around 1862, nineteen years after A Christmas Carol was published.

’Tis the season is most often recognized in the lyrics to the classic holiday song, Deck the Halls. Go ahead and sing along with us!

Deck the halls with boughs of holly

Fa la la la la, la la la la

‘Tis the season to be jolly

Fa la la la la, la la la la . . .

Whenever you carol about donning your gay apparel, you’re singing lyrics written by Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant. They’re sung to the tune of a Welsh winter folk song called Nos Galan. Believe it or not, the Nos Galan (which means “New Year’s eve” in 18th century Welsh) was a competitive New Year’s Eve drinking song.

Where does the word ’tis come from?

‘Tis (pronounced tiz) is a contraction of it is, similar to it’s. The word is much older than Oliphant’s holiday song, however. Its origins probably date back to the 1500s.

Here’s a tip: Because ’tis is a contraction, it requires an apostrophe. Make sure your word processor doesn’t automatically add a single left quotation mark instead!

‘Tis is also known as a proclitic, which is a word that’s closely connected in pronunciation with the word that follows it. When we don’t take time to enunciate the two separate words it and is, we get a word like ’tis that just sort of rolls off the tongue. Proclitics work especially well when singing an up-tempo song or when cutting a syllable to fit a poem’s meter.

According to Google Ngram, ’tis first appeared in writing in the early 1600s but peaked in popularity a hundred years later in the early 1700s. You’ll find the word in everything from the works of Shakespeare to Monty Python.

• “If it were done when ’tis done, then ‘twere well. It were done quickly.” —Shakespeare, Macbeth
• “Anger as soon as fed is dead; ‘Tis starving makes it fat.” —Emily Dickinson
• ”Susan, ’tis Phoebe he loves, ’tis me, not Livvy!” —J. M. Barrie “Quality Street”
• “’Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” —George Washington
• ”’Tis a flesh wound!” —The Black Knight, Monty Python and the Holy Grail

If you’d love to revive colorful (if archaic) contractions such as ’tis, you might consider adding ’twas to your vocabulary. That’s a contraction of it was. It’s also the first word of the popular poem A Visit From St. Nicholas. You know, the one that starts with “’Twas the night before Christmas.”

How to Address a Letter: 9 Tips You Should Know

You don’t do this often.

Let’s face it. Putting the date at the top and your signature at the bottom isn’t your jam when it’s time to address a letter. Nor is folding pages into crisp thirds to fit inside an envelope. Formal letters just aren’t your specialty.

 

As far as new jobs go, the good news is that learning how to address a letter is a lot easier than learning to tie a respectable half-Windsor or mastering the mysterious art of polite breakroom chitchat.

Let’s start with a rundown of how to properly address your fancy letter in a way that says “Hey, I do this all the time.”

1Start by putting your contact information at the top.

This longstanding rule makes sense: you want the person you’re addressing to readily know who you are, where you’re coming from, and how they can respond to you.

That last bit is especially vital to check because you don’t want to sabotage any possibility of hearing back from someone you took the time to write. The world is full of woeful young job-seekers who realized only too late that there was a typo in the contact information they pasted in while dispatching a wave of applications.

2Next, put the date.

This one’s easy to get right, and embarrassing (or hilarious) to get wrong. What year is it? How long was I asleep?

3After that, put the recipient’s address.

Think of this as one of the rare occasions where you’re essentially telling a near stranger “I know where you are” and it’s seen as a courtesy. Cherish that.

If you’re writing to a company where you already know someone, this part is a layup—just ask them for the details. Otherwise, this step merits a quick search online.

4Next comes the salutation. “Dear” is a fine stock option.

There are a lot of possibilities once you’re ready to say hello: Greetings, Salutations, and trusty old Dear all spring to mind.

You might feel tempted to try to stand out by choosing an exotic option, but it’s risky. You may not want to gamble on a stranger appreciating a Howdy, let alone such a . . . distinct choice as Hail. (Feel free to ignore that last bit if the person you’re writing is truly dedicated to their role at a renaissance festival.)

Often, your best bet is the straightforward route: Dear is widely used for a reason, after all.

And don’t overthink whether it’s awkward to address someone you’ve never met this way. People who aren’t “dear” to each other per se sling the word around all the time in correspondence, even in the midst of tense legal posturing between a presidential campaign and a topflight newspaper. In such fraught circumstances, the word Dear isn’t the part that people are stressing over.

5Know who you’re contacting.

Sometimes this is easy. Again, if you already know someone on the inside of a company where you’re sending a cover letter, for instance, they should be able to help you nail down the specifics fairly painlessly. Otherwise…

6Not to belabor this, but that last item might warrant a little research.

Depending on the relative opacity of the organization you’re writing to, precisely whom you should address may not be obvious. For instance, if you’re a writer applying to even a mid-size publication, you’ll quickly discover the place is crawling with editors—but which one is supposed to read your letter?

One solution is to just find an all-purpose phone number to dial and ask who the appropriate department head is. Another approach is to poke around on LinkedIn and suss out the correct person that way. Whatever you do, avoid punting with a lazy “Dear Sir or Madam.”

7Mister, Miss, Doctor, Senator, None of the Above

The most common approach here is simple: an old-timey Mr. or Ms.

In addressing a woman you don’t know, Ms. is usually safer than Mrs. It assumes less, and can seem more professional by refraining from drawing the recipient’s marital status into the matter.

It’s worth noting when it comes to honorifics there are differing schools of thought; you might prefer the gender-neutral route, simply putting the subject’s full name.

Also, be on the watch for cases like doctors and PhD holders: many will tell you they worked hard for their credentials and appreciate being recognized as Dr.

You want to make a good impression, after all.

8Put a colon or a comma.

This one’s up to you. While the comma at the end of your salutation does the job just fine, some argue the colon appears more sophisticated.

9If you’re sharing this letter online, consider saving it as a PDF.

It’s hardly a problem if you plan to print your letter out on a sheet of paper, but in 2017, many formal letters end up as files whirling through the ether from one computer to the next, and when they arrive on an alien screen with wonky settings, their formatting is tragically wrecked.

Further, imagine someone printing your letter, wrecked formatting and all, en route to a meeting to discuss it with colleagues. The mortification.

One way to preserve your letter’s tidy address in transit is to save your file as a PDF, so your work arrives legibly intact.

With your letter clearly addressed, you’re well on your way to corresponding like an old-school professional. Grammarly has lots of other tips on how bring your fancy letter in for a landing, too.

Do You Capitalize the Names of Countries, Nationalities, and Languages?

You should capitalize the names of countries, nationalities, and languages because they are proper nouns—English nouns that are always capitalized.

Consider the following sentences and pay attention to the capitalized nouns:

English is made up of many languages, including Latin, German, and French.

My mother is British, and my father is Dutch.

The Mennonites began to worship in the Netherlands in the sixteenth century.

Jason has traveled extensively in Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

If you’re ever wondering when to capitalize English, when you’re talking about the language or the nationality, the answer always. Although people writing casually online often lowercase the word, it is a proper noun and therefore requires a capital letter.

The 10 Biggest Leadership Mistakes You Really Should Avoid

You made it. You’re a manager or boss, maybe even a business owner or CEO. Now, it’s time to be a leader. If you know anything about managing other people and their ideas, you know that it’s a super tough gig. There are many tempting traps you can fall into when it comes to being in charge, but as long as you’re cognizant of them, they’re possible to avoid. Keep reading for our top ten mistakes leaders make, plus how to be sure you steer clear of them.

1 Not listening to others

Two brains are better than one, right? Even when you’re in charge, the ideas of others are highly valuable. No two people see the same issue in the exact same way, so thinking that you always know best is extremely closed-minded. You don’t always have to take the advice or ideas of others, but even just acknowledging other perspectives can help inform the decisions that are ultimately yours to make.

2 Forgetting about the details

The big picture is important, and as a leader it’s your job to define what that is. It’s also your job to make sure that your company is on track toward achieving those important goals you’ve set. But here’s the thing: those major objectives are only reached through a series of smaller projects and wins. It’s true that you don’t want to sweat the small stuff, but you can’t have a completely hands-off approach to what’s going on in the lower rungs of your organization. Make an effort to understand the day-to-day tasks of all departments in your company—that way you’ll notice when something’s gone awry.

3 Failing to recognize individual successes

Praise is an incredible motivator and you should give it out where it’s due. If someone does something great, they deserve to be recognized for it. It’s also important to remember that taking credit for others’ successes is a major no-no, since it will immediately alienate them and put them on the defensive. You want your employees to feel like they’re part of a collaborative team rather than a power-hungry dictatorship.

4 Not being open to change

It’s easy to get comfortable with the way things are, but systems by their very nature evolve. In most cases, there is an improvement that can be made to any process, idea, or product, so if you see that change needs to happen in order to increase efficiency or productivity, don’t resist!

5 Being inaccessible

If your employees or direct reports can’t come to you with issues or to seek advice, you’re not doing your job as a leader. Of course, you don’t want people to come to you about every small thing that happens in the office, but even the lowest-level employees should know that if a major problem is occurring, your door is open.

6 Micromanaging

As mentioned earlier, your job is to manage big picture goals. There’s a difference between being keyed-in to the details of your company and obsessively micromanaging things that are outside of your scope. Hire people you trust to get the smaller jobs done and check in with them regularly—but there’s no need get involved in every single thing they do.

7 Not making communication a priority

If something important is going on at your company, the employees should know about it. With all the communication options we have available in the business world (email, workflow apps, conference calls, meetings, intranet websites, etc.), there’s no reason people should have to feel in the dark about what’s going on. Obviously, there are some sensitive topics you may not want to share with all employees publicly, but they should know that there are open communication channels with you that go both ways.

8 Being too personal or impersonal

It shouldn’t be all about you, all the time. Employees don’t need to know every time you go on a date, why you’re annoyed with a parent or anything that you would share only with an extremely close friend. On the other hand, if your employees know nothing about you, it will be difficult for them to relate. It’s also a good idea to get to know your employees on a personal level as much as feasible, since it shows that you’re invested in their success.

9 Failing to admit when you’re wrong

There’s nothing worse than a leader who won’t acknowledge a mistake or error in judgement. If it turns out that you were wrong about something, own up to it and then move on. No harm, no foul. Your employees will respect this stance a lot more than if you try to play the blame game or deny any fault.

10 Being afraid to fire people

Of course, you should only fire someone if their performance is very poor, but many leaders will let under-performers slide because they don’t want to lower morale or have a difficult conversation. Imagine you could replace that person who isn’t a good fit with someone who is perfect for the job, who meets all your goals and adds value to your team. How much more productive would your team as a whole be? If you’ve made an effort to give constructive criticism and your poor performer isn’t improving, chances are, the uncomfortable conversation will be worth it.

A version of this post originally appeared on Glassdoor’s blog.

Do You Take Notes In Your Books?