A little piece of an advertising circular caught my eye this morning. I wondered whether the word use was correct.

My week at the copy editing factory was long and busy, but I hit the jackpot on some real-life examples of mixed-up word choices. I recognize that my joy is rather perverse, but I was happy to find material for a Grammar Guide quiz on word choice.

I hope you have fun taking the quiz. Click here or on the question mark icon to begin. Leave a comment below if you would like.

I've written the 50th Grammar Guide quiz. This one is based on words we often see used incorrectly in fashion and home decor stories. They are common words that are easily mistyped and overlooked. As usual, I have written an explanation for each answer so you will get feedback as you check your answers. The explanations are the same whether you answered correctly or not.

Click here or on the question mark icon to begin. Have fun and post a comment below if you wish.

If you are a close and thorough reader of The N&O, you might have an advantage on the new Grammar Guide quiz. I based the quiz on Sunday's newspaper. I found five sentences that included words or terms that are sometimes confused in writing. To the credit of writers and editors, all but one of the five sentences were correct in the paper.

I have a new quiz for you to try. It comprises 10 sentences, about half of them have to do with word choice, a couple are about grammar and at least one is about idioms. To satisfy the purists, I should not call this a grammar quiz because it is mostly about usage and style, but "grammar" is the shorthand term I use.

As always, I look for your comments, questions, criticisms and quibbles. Please leave a comment below. Click here or on the question mark icon to begin.

A reader sent me an e-mail message about word usage in caption that appeared on the
Sports pages recently. You can see the photo below.

Copy editors learn early in their training to distinguish commonly confused words. Stylebooks and writing manuals have entries and lists of such words.

Today's quiz is about word choice. Choose the better word in these five sentences. You might find a couple of sentences tricky. I hope you find the quiz enjoyable and educational. After all, that's the point.

Click here or on the question mark icon to begin. 

I  am a fan of word of the year lists. They give us insight into our times. They also give us grist for the blog mill. 

We used to have a saying on the copy desk: Don't follow the stylebook out the window. In other words, common sense should govern which style rules you enforce.

The Associated Press Stylebook is the guide we use for deciding how to handle some usage matters. We follow it -- mostly. Some of us love it, and some of us hate it. Some of us see it as a blunt instrument we can use to subdue crazed writers. And some folks see it as a rich source for parody. Those are the people behind the Fake AP Stylebook on Twitter. Warning: They use words that are decidedly not in the AP Stylebook but which can be heard from time to time in certain workplaces.