# It looks like the difference between "every day" and "everyday" is dead.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-looks-like-the-difference-between-every-day-and-everyday-is-dead/804085>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [December 10, 2017, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-looks-like-the-difference-between-every-day-and-everyday-is-dead/804085 "2017-12-10T06:48:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\
**Post date:** [December 25, 2017, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-looks-like-the-difference-between-every-day-and-everyday-is-dead/804085/41 "2017-12-25T19:24:11Z")

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I don’t think anyone (or is that “any one”? ;)) has mentioned “anyway” vs. “any way”, another in the same pattern. “I don’t know anyway to do this.” :rolleyes: And “setup” vs. “set up”: “It only takes about five minutes to setup.”

> [@guizot](#):
>
> And those are spelling errors. Just like apostrophes, they don’t have much to do with the issue in the OP.

I wouldn’t necessarily characterize misuse of “effect” and “affect” as spelling errors. They might be, but I suspect in most cases the writer hasn’t even thought through the fact that these are completely different words with different meanings, and are not even the same part of speech. Neither one is a mind-boggling spelling challenge if one is aware of their existence as distinct words.

> [@guizot](#):
>
> The semantics of an utterance are instantiated (or not) in its usage–in the context of the act of speech itself. If “correct” usage were predicated on correct knowledge of word etymology, than a person who never learned to read or write would–by logical extension–never really be able to speak correctly at all, which is absurd.

This seems quite wrong to me in the context to which you replied. Homonyms are obviously irrelevant in speech. Someone ignorant of distinctions between heterographs like “reign” and “rein” will expose that particular ignorance only in written communication. And it takes no deep knowledge of its etymology to understand the origin of “rein in”.

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**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\
**Post date:** [December 25, 2017, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-looks-like-the-difference-between-every-day-and-everyday-is-dead/804085/42 "2017-12-25T19:56:00Z")

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> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> > [@glowacks](#):
> >
> > I like when people make these mistakes, because it proves that they are lesser humans than me, and I am justified in feeling smarter than them.
> > 
> > I might be serious.
> 
> “…than I.”
> 
> HA-ha, I am better than you. :D:cool:

Apparently Shakespeare was also illiterate: 😉  
A man no mightier than thyself or me …  
[http://shakespeare.mit.edu/julius\_caesar/julius\_caesar.1.3.html](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/julius_caesar/julius_caesar.1.3.html)  
The argument has been made (by Pinker, Pullum, and others) that the case of pronouns in a conjunctive phrase need not be the same case as the phrase itself (thus, the common “Me and Alice are going to the movies”) and that common usage has normalized that practice to the point that the strict prescriptivist rule would in many situations regard such a person as engaging in hypercorrection, or what is technically referred to as “sounding like a dork”. 😃

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