Although speaking English comes naturally to most native speakers, writing it can sometimes feel fraught with potential pitfalls. If you have ever paused after writing a word or a phrase and wondered if you’d written it correctly, this series is for you! Part 1 focused on the homophones anytime and any time. Today’s tricky word pair is hinted at in the title: everyday and every day. As mentioned in the first post, keeping in mind the function of the word or phrase will help to guide your spelling.
The compound word everyday is an adjective. This means that the word describes a noun. Here is an example of it used in a sentence: It is an everyday task of mine to feed my cats. What kind of task? Everyday task.
Written as two separate words, every day is an adverbial phrase made up of an adjective (every) and a noun (day) that tells when something occurs. Together the two mean “each day.” Here are a few sentences showing the words in use.
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Every day Martha faithfully writes in her diary before going to bed.
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Stephen swam in the ocean every day of his vacation.
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Last week the rain incessantly poured every day.
Feeling more confident? Try your hand at these sentences. Answers are at the bottom of the post. In the spirit of mastery-based education, there are a couple of sentences that review Part 1 of the series.
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Lupine, Jennifer’s cat, looks forward to gobbling his kibble _______________. (everyday or every day)
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It was not an ________________ opportunity that presented itself to Margaret last Friday. (everyday or every day)
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_______________ that she had a moment to spare, she would take a quick walk around her block. (anytime or any time)
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The veterinarian informed Jeffrey that the puppies could come at ________________. (anytime or any time)
The chart below reviews the parts of speech of the words discussed so far.
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Adjective |
Noun |
Adverb |
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any |
time |
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anytime |
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every |
day |
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everyday |
How did you do? We will continue our look at more tricky word pairs in a future blog post, so don’t worry if you missed any. You will have more opportunities to try again. Practice makes progress!
Previous blog posts in the series.:
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1. every day 2. everyday 3. anytime or any time 4. any time
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Jennifer Mauser has always loved reading and writing and received a B.A. in English from the University of Kansas in 1991. Once she and her husband had children, they decided to homeschool, and she put all her training to use in the home. In addition to homeschooling her children, Jennifer teaches IEW classes out of her home, coaches budding writers via email, and tutors students who struggle with dyslexia. |
