Monday, July 16, 2001

Smoothies Are Something Else Altogether

It appears to be time to smooth things over.

On Page 205 of my first book, I warn against getting confused by soothe and adding an e to the verb smooth. "Never seen that one before," one of my co-workers commented. So I felt a little vindication when a recent edition of Style & Substance, The Wall Street Journal's excellent in-house usage newsletter, pointed out such an error in the Journal, saying "Misspelling smooth does not soothe."

A few days after I read that newsletter, the aforementioned co-worker missed a smoothe in a story he edited.

A few days after that, a Washington Post story (not in my section) contained the phrase "sooth your soul."

Never seen that one before.