Thoroughness Challenge

The Thoroughness Challenge is a post consisting of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors. The paragraphs with the errors corrected and highlighted in red can be found at the end of the post.

Note: The purpose of the Challenge is thoroughness. You're only looking for errors in spelling and/or grammar. Names and places will NOT be misspelled, nor will there by any changes to punctuation or sentence structure.


Your Challenge today is about the early days of search engine optimization and contains 37 errors.

Good Luck!
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Webmasters and content providers began optimzing sites for search engines in the mid 1990s. Initially, all webmasters needed to do was submit the address of a page, or URL, to the varous engines which would send a "spider" to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return infomation found on the page to be indexed. The prosess involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server, where a second progam, known as an indexer, extracts varous information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specfic words, and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a schedular for crawling at a latter date.

Site owners started to recogize the value of having there sites highly ranked and visable in search engine results, and the phrase "search engine optimazation" probably came into use in 1997.

Early versions of search algorithyms relied on webmaster-provided infomation such as the keyword meta tag, or index files in engines. Meta tags provide a guide to each page's content. Using meta data to index pages was found to be less than reliable, however, because the webmaster's choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentally be an innacurate representaton of the site's actual content. Inacurate, inconplete, and inconsistant data in meta tags could and did cause pages to rank for irrelavant searches. Web content providers also maniplated a number of atributes within the HTML source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.

By relying so much on factors such as keyword density, which were exclusivley within a webmaster's control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking maniplation. To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adept to ensure their results pages showed the most relavant search results, rather than unrelated pages stuffed with numrous keywords by unscrupulus webmasters. Since the sucess and popularity of a search engine is determned by its ability to produce the most relavant results to any given search, allowing those results to be false would turn users to find other search sources. Search engines responded by develping more complex ranking algorythms, taking into account addtional factors that were more diffcult for webmasters to munipulate.

Now, let's see how thorough you are!

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Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid 1990s. Initially, all webmasters needed to do was submit the address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a "spider" to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed. The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server, where a second program, known as an indexer, extracts various information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specific words, and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a scheduler for crawling at a later date.

Site owners started to recognize the value of having their sites highly ranked and visible in search engine results, and the phrase "search engine optimization" probably came into use in 1997.

Early versions of search algorithms relied on webmaster-provided information such as the keyword meta tag, or index files in engines. Meta tags provide a guide to each page's content. Using meta data to index pages was found to be less than reliable, however, because the webmaster's choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentially be an inaccurate representation of the site's actual content. Inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent data in meta tags could and did cause pages to rank for irrelevant searches. Web content providers also manipulated a number of attributes within the HTML source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.

By relying so much on factors such as keyword density, which were exclusively within a webmaster's control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation. To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adapt to ensure their results pages showed the most relevant search results, rather than unrelated pages stuffed with numerous keywords by unscrupulous webmasters. Since the success and popularity of a search engine is determined by its ability to produce the most relevant results to any given search, allowing those results to be false would turn users to find other search sources. Search engines responded by developing more complex ranking algorithms, taking into account additional factors that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate.





Wishing all you Cool Cats a totally Cool and HAPPY day!

Thoroughness Challenge

A Brief History of Presidents Day

The Thoroughness Challenge is a post consisting of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors. The paragraphs with the errors corrected and highlighted in red can be found at the end of the post.

Note: The purpose of the Challenge is thoroughness. You're only looking for errors in spelling and/or grammar. Names and places will NOT be misspelled, nor will there by any changes to punctuation or sentence structure. In addition, if there is a word that may have more than one accepted spelling, those also will not be changed.


Your Challenge today is: A Brief History of Presidents Day, and contains 8 errors. Good Luck!

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If you live in the United States than you will know that yesterday was Presidents Day; also known as Washington’s Birthday. Presidents Day is a federal holiday in the US and is celebrated on the third Monday in Febuary.

The federal holiday titled as Washington’s Birthday, was originally implimented by the United States Congress in 1880 for the goverment offices in the District of Columbia, but then expanded in 1885 to include all federal offices.

As it was the first federal holiday to honor an American citizen, the holiday was originally celebrated on George Washington’s actual birthday – February 22nd. It was on January 1, 1971 that the day got shifted to the third Monday in Febuary.

That date than fell between February 15th and the 21st, which would never actualy fall on Washington’s Birthday. A draft of the Uniform Holiday Bill of 1968 would have had the holiday renamed as Presidents Day, to honor both Washington and Lincoln.

That proposal unfortunately failed in commitee at that time, so the name Washington’s Birthday was kept. The first attempt to create the day as a Presidents Day came in 1951; however, it wasn't until the mid-1980’s that the term Presidents Day began being used.


Now, let's see how thorough you are!



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If you live in the United States then you will know that yesterday was Presidents Day; also known as Washington’s Birthday. Presidents Day is a federal holiday in the US and is celebrated on the third Monday in February.

The federal holiday titled as Washington’s Birthday, was originally implemented by the United States Congress in 1880 for the goverment offices in the District of Columbia, but then expanded in 1885 to include all federal offices.

As it was the first federal holiday to honor an American citizen, the holiday was originally celebrated on George Washington’s actual birthday – February 22nd. It was on January 1, 1971 that the day got shifted to the third Monday in February.

That date then fell between February 15th and the 21st, which would never actually fall on Washington’s Birthday. A draft of the Uniform Holiday Bill of 1968 would have had the holiday renamed as Presidents Day, to honor both Washington and Lincoln.

That proposal unfortunately failed in committee at that time, so the name Washington’s Birthday was kept. The first attempt to create the day as a Presidents Day came in 1951; however, it wasn't until the mid-1980’s that the term Presidents Day began being used.

Thoroughness Challenge

Thorough Thursday is a post consisting of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors. The paragraphs with the errors corrected and highlighted in red can be found at the end of the post.

Note: The purpose of the Challenge is thoroughness. You're only looking for errors in spelling and/or grammar. Names and places will NOT be misspelled, nor will there by any changes to punctuation or sentence structure. In addition, if there is a word that may have more than one accepted spelling, those also will not be changed.


Your Challenge today takes a look at how to pronounce "2010," and contains 6 errors. Good Luck!


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How do you say the current year? Now that we've reached double digits at the end of "2000," I'm sure you have heard people refer to the year differently. The to main contenders are "twenty-ten" and "two thousand ten." So which is correct?

Before the turn of the century, most people pronounced the years by combining the first too numbers and the last too numbers. So we had "nineteen fifty," nineteen eighty-five," and so on. After the turn of the century, we started commonly pronouncing the years the long way; "two thousand one," "two thousand two," and so on.

Now it seems that some people feel more comfortable continuing the trend--going from "two thousand nine" to "two thousand ten" --while the majority of people are eager to return to the old convention, happily moving on from "two thousand nine" to the snappyer sounding "twenty-ten."

The Associated Press has concluded that "twenty-ten" is the preferred choice. However, with all the decisions made when writing (or speaking), the pronounciation question is a style choice; making either pronounciation correct.


Now, let's see how thorough you are!


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How do you say the current year? Now that we've reached double digits at the end of "2000," I'm sure you have heard people refer to the year differently. The two main contenders are "twenty-ten" and "two thousand ten." So which is correct?

Before the turn of the century, most people pronounced the years by combining the first two numbers and the last two numbers. So we had "nineteen fifty," nineteen eighty-five," and so on. After the turn of the century, we started commonly pronouncing the years the long way; "two thousand one," "two thousand two," and so on.

Now it seems that some people feel more comfortable continuing the trend--going from "two thousand nine" to "two thousand ten" --while the majority of people are eager to return to the old convention, happily moving on from "two thousand nine" to the snappier sounding "twenty-ten."

The Associated Press has concluded that "twenty-ten" is the preferred choice. However, with all the decisions made when writing (or speaking), the pronunciation question is a style choice; making either pronunciation correct.

Sources: AP Stylebook, Grammar Girl

Thoroughness Challenge

Thorough Thursday is a post consisting of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors. The paragraphs with the errors corrected and highlighted in red can be found at the end of the post.

Note: The purpose of the Challenge is thoroughness. You're only looking for errors in spelling and/or grammar. Names and places will NOT be misspelled, nor will there by any changes to punctuation or sentence structure. In addition, if there is a word that may have more than one accepted spelling, those also will not be changed.


Your Challenge paragraphs concludes our look at the history of blogs and blogging with the creation of Blogger - and beyond. This week you're looking for 9 errors. Good Luck!

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BLOGGER and Beyond

In late Janaury of 2001, in the depths of the dot-com crash, a San Francisco startup called Pyra Labs ran out of money. Its staff departed. The co-founder of the company, a young Nebraskan named Evan Williams, decided to make a go of it alone. He scraped together $40,000 in new funding and moved Pyra's servers into his apartment. This permited the company's 100,000 registered customers (and counting) to keep using Pyra's service, Blogger, to publish their online journels, or blogs.

A year later, Blogger had 700,000 subscribers. Whether sharing cookie recipes or commenting on weapons reports from Iraq, those writers were constructing a significent new form of grassroots media. Blogging turned tradtional publishing on its head, allowing anyone with a computer and modem (or even a smartphone) to gain a global voice for free. By 2003, Williams was able to sell his business to Google for a lucritive pile of pre-IPO stock. Three years later he and his partners launched yet another tool for global publishing, the micro-blogging phenomonon, Twitter.

At this point it's hard for some to remember that even in the late '90s most people still regarded web pages as things to read, not places to post and publish. It's an important phenomenen, one that leads not only to YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia but also to the transfomation of corporate and government communications.

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Now, let's see how thorough you are!

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BLOGGER and Beyond

In late January of 2001, in the depths of the dot-com crash, a San Francisco startup called Pyra Labs ran out of money. Its staff departed. The co-founder of the company, a young Nebraskan named Evan Williams, decided to make a go of it alone. He scraped together $40,000 in new funding and moved Pyra's servers into his apartment. This permitted the company's 100,000 registered customers (and counting) to keep using Pyra's service, Blogger, to publish their online journals, or blogs.

A year later, Blogger had 700,000 subscribers. Whether sharing cookie recipes or commenting on weapons reports from Iraq, those writers were constructing a significant new form of grassroots media. Blogging turned traditional publishing on its head, allowing anyone with a computer and modem (or even a smartphone) to gain a global voice for free. By 2003, Williams was able to sell his business to Google for a lucrative pile of pre-IPO stock. Three years later he and his partners launched yet another tool for global publishing, the micro-blogging phenomenon, Twitter.

At this point it's hard for some to remember that even in the late '90s most people still regarded web pages as things to read, not places to post and publish. It's an important phenomenon, one that leads not only to YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia but also to the transformation of corporate and government communications.

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Thoroughness Challenge

Thoroughly Thursday is a weekly post consisting of a couple of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors, and your job is to find them. Please do not list the errors you find within the post. The same post is repeated at the end of Fun Friday's Spelling Challenge, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

Note: Names and places will NOT be misspelled, nor will there by any changes to punctuation or capitalization. In addition, if there is a word that may have more than one accepted form or there is more than one accepted spelling, those also will not be changed. That would not be fair...the purpose of the Challenge is thoroughness, not technicalities.



This week your Challenge takes a look at the history of the blogs and blogging, and contains 9 errors.
Good Luck!



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Blogging has become a hole separate world from the internet. Blogging actually surfaced back in 1983, when it was referred to as "Usenet." It was considered a primary medium for moderated newsgroups which provided an area for posting discussions on virtually any topic, but was moderated by individuals or small groups. It wasn't until 1994, just a few years after the world wide web was created, that blogs evolved into what is more commonly referred to as an online diary.

Blogging, while starting out slow, has rapidly gained popularity as a tool for many individuals, organizations and corporations, as a medium to stay in touch with and provide a means of creating an infomation system. On the individual platform, it is a way for average citizens to have a venue to communicate, reach out and provide feedback on practicaly any subject humanly concievable.

The term blog was derived form what most knew as web-logs. The term weblog meaning a regularly updated collection of links to other sites and comments, was originally coined by Jorn Barger in 1997, though what is commonly understood as blogging began as early as 1996. In May of 1999, Peter Merholz coined the term blog in a posting on his personal blog sight, by mischieviously braking down the word weblog to we blog. The we was eventually dropped, resulting in the term we are all familar with: blog.

In broad terms, a blog is commonly thought of as an online journal, though they can range from intimate personal diaries to more journalistic newsletters. Some blogs focus on a narrow selection of topics of interest to the author, while other blogs cover a much wider range of topics.

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Be sure to check back tomorrow to see how thorough you are!

Spelling Challenge

It's Fun Friday's Spelling Challenge! And, at the very end of this post are the words that were misspelled in yesterday's Thorough Thursday challenge.

Do you have your sticky note and pen ready? Great! Let's get started! Write down the correct spelling for this week's words. As usual the answers are listed below.

NO PEEKING!


1. athiest
2. bellweather
3. concensus
4. dumbell
5. exhilerate
6. hierachy
7. innoculate
8. liason
9. occurrance
10. pronounciation

BONUS WORD
perogative

Now lets see if you can add to that collection of virtual stars you have!
As you know, If you spell all 10 words correctly
you get a sparkling GOLD star! (Isn't it pretty?)



If you spell the bonus word correctly
you get the prized, very special, much coveted and very beautiful
Crystal Clear Proofing PURPLE star!


For spelling all the words, including the bonus word correctly
you get a GOLD AND a PURPLE star!
(And you ROCK!)



ANSWERS:

1. atheist
2. bellwether
3. consensus
4. dumbbell
5. exhilarate
6. hierarchy
7. inoculate
8. liaison
9. occurrence
10. pronunciation

BONUS WORD:
prerogative



So? How'd you do this week? How many of those stunning stars do you get to add to your collection? To those of you who earned stars...

Here is yesterday's Thorough Thursday post in its entirety, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

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Early History

The practice of making extra copies of manuscripts goes back to ancient times; in Rome there were booksellers—Horace mentions the Sosii, who were apparently brothers—and the copying of books by trained slaves reached considerable proportions. With the introduction of printing into Europe in the middle of the 15th century, book publishing sprang into lively existence. The author, the printer, and the publisher of a work were sometimes all the same person, as in the case of members of the Estienne family in France in the 16th cent. The differentiation of printer, publisher, and bookseller appeared early, however, as patrons of literature had books printed for distribution and booksellers had their printing done by others to meet the growing demand.

The Emergence of Publishing Houses

The first important publishing house (1583–1791) was that of the Elzevir family in Holland. The Elzevirs were businessmen rather than scholars, and the business of bookselling grew as literacy increased. Concurrently, printing, publishing, and bookselling spread learning across the West. Religious controversy bred polemics, and arguments printed in broadsides, pamphlets, and books were handed out zealously and bought eagerly by partisans. An interest in knowing the future also increased the amount of literature issued by bookseller-publishers, and almanacs and the like were issued for the wider public.


*******************************************************************************Between the Spelling Challenge and the Thorougness Challenge, you all deserve a little recognition! So let's spread some of that famous Crystal Clear Proofing HAPPY and award everyone for their efforts with the fun, new SMILEY STAR!






And wishing you all a very

Thoroughness Challenge

Thoroughly Thursday is a weekly post consisting of a couple of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors, and your job is to find them. Please do not list the errors you find within the post. The same post will be repeated at the end of Fun Friday's Spelling Challenge, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

Note: Names and places will NOT be misspelled, nor will there by any changes to punctuation. In addition, if there is a word that may have more than one accepted form or there is more than one accepted spelling, those also will not be changed. That would not be fair...the purpose of the Challenge is thoroughness, not technicalities.



This week's paragraphs feature a little history on the first books published and the coming of age of the modern-day publishing houses. This excerpt is taken from Fun Trivia, and it contains 14 errors. Good Luck!




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Early History

The practice of making extra copies of manuscripts goes back to ancient times; in Rome there were booksellers—Horace mentions the Sosii, who were apparantly brothers—and the copying of books by trained slaves reached considerable preportions. With the introduction of printing into Europe in the middle of the 15th century, book publshing sprang into lively existance. The author, the printer, and the publisher of a work were sometimes all the same person, as in the case of members of the Estienne family in France in the 16th century. The differentation of printer, publisher, and bookseller appeared early, however, as patrons of litrature had books printed for distribution and booksellers had their printing done by others to meet the growing demand.

The Emergance of Publishing Houses

The first importent publishing house (1583–1791) was that of the Elzevir family in Holland. The Elzevirs were businessmen rather than scholars, and the business of bookselling grew as literacy increased. Concurrantly, printing, publishing, and bookselling spred learning across the West. Religious contraversy bred polemics, and arguments printed in broadsides, pamphlets, and books were handed out zelously and bought eagerly by partesans. An interest in knowing the future also increased the amount of literature issued by bookseller-publishers, and almenacs and the like were issued for the wider public.


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Be sure to check back tomorrow to see how thorough you are!

Spelling Challenge

Not only is it Friday and time to test your spelling skills, it's the LAST Friday of the month, and the day before Halloween!

This week I'm beginning a new way of challenging your spelling skills. Rather than give you three choices, I'm going to list, as usual, 10 words and a bonus word...what's different is that YOU have to provide the correct spelling. So just grab a little sticky note and a pen, write down the words, spelled correctly, and as usual the answers are listed below.

Also, at the very end of this post are the words that were misspelled in yesterday's Thorough Thursday challenge.

Of course you know...


NO PEEKING!

1. begger
2. changable
3. commitment
4. dominent
5. tempramental
6. tangable
7. prevelant
8. quarantine
9. susseptible
10. vengance

BONUS WORD
conscientous

If you spell all 10 words correctly
you get a GOLD star!



If you spell the bonus word correctly
you get the prized, very special, and much coveted
Crystal Clear Proofing PURPLE star!


For spelling all the words, including the bonus word correctly
you get a GOLD and a PURPLE star!
(Hooray!)
I know! It's exciting, right?!

ANSWERS:

1. beggar
2. changeable
3. commitment
4. dominant
5. temperamental
6. tangible
7. prevalent
8. quarantine
9. susceptible
10. vengeance

BONUS WORD:
conscientious


So, how'd you do? Now I didn't say all the words would be misspelled, only that your challenge was to provide the correct spelling. Numbers 3 and 8 were spelled correctly in the first part of the challenge. Did I "catch" any of you?


CONGRATULATIONS
to those of you who earned stars!

Now, here's yesterday's Thorough Thursday post in its entirety, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

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The American tradition of "trick-or-treating" probably dates back to the early All Souls' Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called "soul cakes" in return for their promise to pray for the family's dead relatives.

The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as "going a-souling" was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money.

The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.

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My wishes to all of you for a fantastic, fun, safe weekend - and

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!





I'd like to add a note here at the end of this post to genuinely thank Karen for having honored me by passing on the Kreativ Blogger award to me today! If you haven't done so already, visit her blog! Karen is a wonderful lady whose posts are interesting and heartfelt! I'm so happy we found each other! Thank you Karen!

Thoroughness Challenge

Thoroughly Thursday is a weekly post where I type a couple of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors, and your job is to find them. The same post is repeated at the end of Fun Friday's Spelling Challenge, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

This is on the honor system! No spending all day, printing it out, looking up words...you have to complete the challenge here.
Also, please keep the errors you find to yourself, rather than list them here within the post...we don't want to "help" anyone else inadvertently!

Last week your your Thoroughly Thursday paragraphs were about the origins of Halloween and its coming the America. The following is part two, again an exerpt from History.com on some of the traditions of Halloween and why we have them. This week's Challenge contains 7 errors. Good Luck!


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The American tradition of "trick-or-treating" probably dates back to the early All Souls' Day parades in England. During the festivties, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pasteries called "soul cakes" in return for their promise to pray for the family's dead relatives.

The distrbution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, witch was referred to as "going a-souling" was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money.

The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightning time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constent worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to apease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.


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Be sure to check back tomorrow to see how you did!

Spelling Challenge

Happy Friday Everyone! I'd like to invite you all sto stop by CC-Chronicles blog to read a little about yours truly. I'm very honored to have been interviewed for her first new Friday feature, "Welcome to the Weekend With..."
An opportunity for you to get to know a little more about the Crystal behind Crystal Clear Proofing!


Now, back to our end-of-the-week challenge! It's time to test those spelling skills again! Here are this week's words, followed by the answers.

Also, at the very end of this post are the words that were misspelled in yesterday's Thorough Thursday challenge.

Now remember...


NO PEEKING!

1. acquaitence, aquaintance, acquaintance

2. cematery, cemetery, cemetary

3. dillemma, dilemma, dillemma

4. equivalent, equivelent, equivelant

5. hienous, hieneous, heinous

6. minuscule, miniscule, minescule

7. ocurrance, occurrence, occurance

8. permmisible, permisible, permissible

9. pavilion, pavileon, pavillion

10. rememberance, remembrance, rememberence


BONUS WORD

symeterical, symmetrical, symetrical

As usual, for spelling all the words correctly
you get a GOLD star!



And, if you spelled the bonus word correctly
you get the prized, very special, and much coveted
Crystal Clear Proofing PURPLE star!


For spelling all the words, including the bonus word correctly
you get a GOLD and a PURPLE star!
(Hooray!)

ANSWERS:

1. acquaintance
2. cemetery
3. dilemma
4. equivalent
5. heinous
6. minuscule
7. occurrence
8. permissible
9. pavilion
10. remembrance


BONUS WORD:

symmetrical





CONGRATULATIONS
to those of you who earned stars!

Now, here's yesterday's Thorough Thursday post in its entirety, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

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The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

Over the years traditions changed, and in America, people began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick-or-treat" tradition. In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers, than about ghosts, pranks, and witchcraft. Because of their efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century.

Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats. A new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country's second largest commercial holiday.


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So, how'd you do? Be sure to check back next week for our Halloween traditions, and why we have them. As usual, I hope that you all have a very...

HAPPY WEEKEND!

Spelling Challenge

What happens to these weeks that I see out of the corner of my eye, literally flying by? Where do they go? Well, I managed to grab the last day as it was preparing to whiz by me, smoothed it out and placed a piece of it on this page. Because hard as it is to believe, it's once again time to test your skills with "Fun Friday's Spelling Challenge!"

And...here are today's words, with the answers below.

Also, same as that last week that flew on by, at the very end of this post are the words that were misspelled in yesterday's Thorough Thursday challenge.


Now remember...


NO PEEKING!

1. abundence, abundense, abundance

2. amateur, amatuer, ameteur

3. boundries, boundaries, bounderies

4. changeable, changable, changeble

5. commission, comission, commision

6. disasterous, disasterus, disastrous

7. embarass, embarrass, embarress

8. hemmorrage, hemorrage, hemorrhage

9. governor, govenor, govenor

10. millenium, milennium, millennium


BONUS WORD

mischevous, mischievous, mischieveous

As usual, for spelling all the words correctly
you get a GOLD star!



And, if you spelled the bonus word correctly
you get the prized, very special, and much coveted
Crystal Clear Proofing PURPLE star!


For spelling all the words, including the bonus word correctly
you get a GOLD and a PURPLE star!
(Hooray!)

ANSWERS:

1. abundance
2. amateur
3. boundaries
4. changeable
5. commission
6. disastrous
7. embarrass
8. hemorrhage
9. governor
10. millennium


BONUS WORD:

mischievous




CONGRATULATIONS
to those of you who earned stars!

Now, here's yesterday's Thorough Thursday post in its entirety, with the errors highlighted in red. (Oh my goodness, the dreaded red marks!) However in this post, and in the future, rather than just highlighting the incorrect word, I'll be highlighting it and replacing it with the correct word and/or spelling (as should have been done last week)!
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It's hard to believe that summer is behind us. The absence of warm weather affects many people who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis and other joint ailments, yet can be a relief to those who suffer from allergies. There are fewer pollutants in the air, but the fluctuating barometric pressure results in aches and pains definitely being more prevalent. Suffering from osteoarthritis myself, I notice a tremendous change in the severity of joint stiffness.

It seems as though it's comparatively much easier to ease into summer than it is getting used to the colder weather. Our bodies acclimate to the change in climate much better; however, if you happen to suffer from them, nasal allergies do not. The pollination of so much flora, even the growing of the grass in the spring can wreck havoc on our bodies, causing post-nasal drip and itchy, watery eyes. Many find relief from allergies with over-the-counter medications, while some require prescription medication.

And then there's the whole process of changing the contents of your closet. The colder temperatures mean bringing out the heavier, warmer clothing. It's one of the things I miss about having lived in California where "closet rotation" isn't really necessary.

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So, how'd you do? All the errors were spelling, with the exception of effects being used rather that affects, and wrack rather then wreck. This proves a good reminder to everyone that while spell check is a wonderful tool, it isn't going to help you when you use an incorrect word!


As usual, I hope that you all have a very...

HAPPY WEEKEND!

Thoroughness Challenge

Thoroughly Thursday is a weekly post where I type a couple of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors, and your job is to find them. The same post is repeated at the end of Fun Friday's Spelling Challenge, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

This is on the honor system! No spending all day, printing it out, looking up words...you have to complete the challenge here.
Also, please keep the errors you find to yourself, rather than list them here...we don't want to "help" anyone inadvertently!


Here is this week's Thoroughly Thursday challenge,
which contains 24 errors. Good Luck!

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It's hard to beleive that summer is behind us. The absense of warm weather effects many people who suffer from rhuematoid arthritis and other joint ailments, yet can be a releif to those who suffer from allergies. There are fewer pollutents in the air, but the fluctuating barometeric pressure results in aches and pains definately being more prevelant. Suffering from osteoartheritis myself, I notice a tremendus change in the severety of joint stiffness.

It seems as though it's comparitively much easier to ease into summer than it is getting used to the colder weather. Our bodies acclamate to the change in climate much better; however, if you happen to suffer from them, nasel allergies do not. The pollenation of so much flora, even the growing of the grass in the spring can wrack havock on our bodies, causing post-nasel drip and itchy, watery eyes. Many find releif from allergies with over-the-counter medications, while some require perscription medication.

And then there's the whole prosess of changing the contents of your closet. The colder tempratures mean bringing out the heavier, warmer clothing. It's one of the things I miss about having lived in California where "closet rotation" isn't really neccesary.

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Now remember, keep the errors you find, and
Be sure to check back tomorrow to see how you did!

Thoroughness Challenge

Now this is on the honor system! No spending all day, printing it out, looking up words...you have to complete the challenge here while reading.
Also, please keep the errors you find to yourself, rather than list them here within the post...
we don't want to "help" anyone else inadvertently! Thank you everyone!



Thorough Thursday consists of a few short sentences that include mispellings and possibly minor grammer issues to test your attentivness to detail, and to see how thorough you are.

In the first of this feature there are 14 words spelled incorrectley. It can be challanging to acomplish this task with readers posessing such exellent grammer skills. Each week, the mispelled words will be posted at the end of Fun Friday's Spelling Challange.

It will be fun to see whom recieves the best results and finds the most errors! Good luck, and check back tommorrow to see how you did!