Everyday vs. Every Day
Learn the everyday rules of when it’s appropriate to use everyday vs. every day with Grammar Rules from the Writer’s Digest editors. When is it correct to use everyday? When should you go with every day? Are they interchangeable or not?
Learn the everyday rules of when it's appropriate to use everyday vs. every day with Grammar Rules from the Writer's Digest editors. When is it correct to use everyday? When should you go with every day? Are they interchangeable or not?
The battle of everyday vs. every day is one of those "pet peeve" grammar issues of mine (all editors have them, you know). I can't tell you how many times I nearly blow a gasket when I see a menu say they "offer deals everyday." It would be much better if the same menu "offered everyday deals."
So what's the deal with everyday vs. every day anyway?
Everyday is an adjective. It's a synonym for the words ordinary or commonplace. As such, it should only be used to describe nouns. Hence, a menu would "offer everyday deals," but not "offer deals everyday."
Every day is an adverbial phrase that means "each day." As such, a menu that offers deals each day could also be said to "offer deals every day."
Make sense?
Here's another everyday example:
An everyday grammar issue I notice every day is the misuse of the terms everyday and every day.
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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
