The Content Creator’s Master List of Commonly Troublesome Words

blog (n., adj., v.): Preferred to weblog. (lowercase)

business-to-business: hyphenated (abbreviation: B2B)

call-to-action, calls-to-action, CTA, CTAs: Always hyphenate when used as a noun (as in “call-to-action” or “calls-to-action”) or an adjective (as in “call-to-action button” or “call-to-action manager”). Whenever possible, try to use CTA or CTAs instead of the hyphenated
version (it’s a mouthful!).

camera phone: Two words.

checkin (n.) check-in (adj.), check in (v.): One word when used as a noun or an adjective. Two words when used as a verb (usually refers to the social network Foursquare).

cell phone (n., adj.): Two words, no hyphen. (Examples: He left the message on my cell phone. Type in your cell phone number.)

clickthrough (n., adj.), click through (v.): One word when used as a noun or an adjective. Two words when used as a verb. (Examples: The company’s online ads consistently earn a high clickthrough rate. Click through to the last page to see your score.)

crowdsource, crowdsourcing: One word.

do’s and don’ts: Note the apostrophes. This is actually proper AP style. However, it will always cause the editors in your readership to have blinding migraines and send you hate mail, so try to avoid using this construction if at all possible.

e.g.: Abbreviation meaning for example. Note periods. Don’t include a space after the first period. OK to use when space is a consideration; otherwise, use for example, for instance, or such as. If used, always include a comma after the last period. See also “i.e.” and “ex.” as
each of these has different meanings and are not interchangeable. [Example: Enter a search term (e.g., recipes, horoscopes, gifts) into the box.]

ebook: All lowercase (in titles/headlines and at the beginning of sentences, capitalize the “e”
but not the “b”).

ecommerce: All lowercase (in titles/headlines and at the beginning of sentences, capitalize the “e” but not the “c”).

email (n., adj., v.): One word, no hyphen. Plural: email messages and emails are both acceptable.

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