Corrections

This page lists factual corrections to the pages on The Verbarium, newest first. A correction means something published here was wrong: a fact about usage, a test result, or a statement about how a tool works. The page is put right and the correction is listed here with its date. A corrected article also carries a note at its foot.

Typing errors are fixed without a note. An article that has been substantially revised shows an “Updated” date; a revision is not a correction and is not listed here. Report an error through the contact page.

9 October 2026

Every figure in the count (How Long Is a Normal Work Email?): The emails were counted again. The rule that cuts each email off above the message it replies to had left two lines of that message in about 15% of them: the other person’s name and a date, which the mail program put above the quoted text. They were counted as words the sender had typed. With those lines removed, half the emails are 23 words or shorter, where the article said 25, and the other figures moved a little the same way: three quarters are no longer than 49 words (it said 50), 90% no longer than 94 (97) and 99% no longer than 356 (382). The count is of 79,569 emails, where it said 80,338, because more of them turned out to be empty, or copies of another, once the stray lines were gone. The tool on the page and both pictures use the new figures. The figures quoted in the entry of 8 October below came from the first count.
The comparison on 4,000 common words (What a Readability Score Cannot See): The word list comes from the same emails and was drawn again from the corrected count. The two programs agree on 3,722 of the 4,000 words and differ on 278. The article said 3,719 and 281.

8 October 2026

A count in the first menu (Menu Descriptions That Tell the Customer What They’re Getting): The article said two dishes in the first menu are “nestled”. Three are: the granola, the fish finger sandwich and the duck. It also now says that its counts of “fresh” and “homemade” include the dish names.
The number of changes in the CV extract (Which Words to Change on a CV for a British or an American Employer): The American version of the extract was said to change fourteen words or phrases. It changes sixteen: the “UK” added after the university and the “+44” in the phone number had not been counted.
Momentarily, moot point and “an oversight” (Words Your Reader Can Take Two Ways): The article said that table, quite, momentarily and moot point cause no trouble inside one country. That holds for the first two only: momentarily has both meanings in American use, and the two meanings of moot carry no country label. It also gave “an oversight” as open to two readings. With “an” in front it can only mean a mistake.
The tally of the ten sentences (Should You Delete “Just” From Your Emails?): The article said that deleting every hedge would have made five of its ten example emails ruder or less accurate. By its own verdicts it is four, and a fifth a little blunter.
What a readability score counts (What a Readability Score Cannot See): The first sentence described every readability score as arithmetic on words per sentence and syllables per word. That is true of the two Flesch formulas the article tests. Other formulas count letters, or use a list of familiar words. The comparison of two programs on 4,000 common words was run again with the word list named: they agree on 3,719 words, where the article said 3,720.
Duplicate emails in the count (How Long Is a Normal Work Email?): The article said duplicates were dropped because the same message is often filed in more than one folder. That accounts for 24,402 of the 29,352 dropped. The other 4,950 were the same words sent on another day or by another person, mostly one-line replies. Counting them puts the median at 23 words, not 25, and the article’s list of limits now says so. Its other figures are unchanged.
The title inside a picture (Log In or Login?): The picture of the sentence test was still headed “Seven verbs written as one word”, the wording corrected in the text on 7 October. Six of the seven are verbs. The picture was redrawn with the heading “Seven one-word forms that should be two”.

7 October 2026

A verdict from the spelling checker (Find Mixed British and American Spelling in Your Text): The table of verdicts gave “2 British and 10 American spellings” for an email with nine American words listed. The checker returns 9 for those words, and the table now says so. The sentence above the table said two more texts were run; there are three.
Midnight in the opening hours builder (How to Write Opening Hours Without Leaving Customers Guessing): A line in the diagram of the two midnights said the builder writes “midnight” only as the end of an opening. With am and pm it writes “midnight” for an opening time of 00:00 as well, as the article’s own list says. The diagram was redrawn.
Errors a search cannot find (How to Catch the Mistakes Spellcheck Misses): The article said three kinds of error in the test notice cannot be searched for. The notice has two of them: agreement errors and a rare word in the wrong place. Missing and extra words, the third kind, are general advice and were not part of the test.
The sentence given to the spellcheckers (Log In or Login?): The sentence was described as having seven verbs written as one word. Six of its mistakes are verbs. The seventh is everyday where every day is meant.
Older TOEFL scores (How to Describe Your Language Level on a CV): The article said an older TOEFL iBT score of 95 and above corresponds to 5 on the new scale. ETS’s comparison gives 95 to 106 for 5; higher scores correspond to 5.5 and 6.