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Hi. I'm Adam. Welcome back to www.engvid.com . Today I have a very simple lesson for you.
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We're going to look at the difference between the word "every day" and "everyday".
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Some of you might not realize that there's a difference between these two things. "Every
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day" -- you use it all the time, you use it every day, I think. You use it talking about
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habits and things you do on a regular basis. For example, "I brush my teeth every day."
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"You go to school every day", or "You go to work every day, except weekends maybe."
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"Every day" is an adverb of frequency; it talks about how often you do something. Monday,
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Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, every day.
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"Everyday" on the other hand is an adjective. It has a completely different meaning than
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"every day". First, let's look at the sound of these two words. "Every day"; you pronounce
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both syllables of the words: "every day", and there's a little bit of a pause in between.
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"Everyday", on the other hand, you stress only the first syllable and the second one sort
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of dives in.
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"Everyday": what does it mean? It means something that is common, like you see it all the time;
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it's not unusual. I'll write that down, as well.
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Or something that is a little bit unexciting,
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basically, is what we mean. Sometimes, we just talk about something that is casual.
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Here you have the two things: "every day" -- how often, "everyday" -- you're describing
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something, something that's very common. For example you're walking on the street, you
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see a man with a very, very bright pink jacket and tights. Is this an "everyday" sight? No,
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it's not. You don't see this "every day". It's very, very unusual; very, very strange.
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It's not an everyday sight. It's not a common sight. Let's look at a few examples; we'll
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understand this a little bit better.
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Okay. Let's look at a couple of examples. "Alex thought he found a diamond ring on the
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street." He's walking on the street, he sees something shiny, picks it up. Wow. A diamond
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ring. Lots of money, right? "It turned out to be" means he found out later, "that it
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was ________ glass stone." It wasn't a diamond, just plain glass.
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If you thought "everyday", you're right.
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What does "everyday" mean? Just not unusual, common, glass stone. You see
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these all the time. Another thing I could put here is this expression, 'run of the mill'.
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'Run of the mill' is an idiom; it means plain, not very unusual, nothing special about it;
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everyday. This is the adjective to describe the glass stone.
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Let's look at another example. "I read the newspaper ________, but it's mostly filled
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with ________ stories about politicians and the economy." When do I read the newspaper?
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I read the newspaper "every day". Monday I read the newspaper, Tuesday I read the newspaper,
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Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and so on. "But it's mostly filled with..." I
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read the paper, but why? I don't know why. I don't like reading the newspaper; it's always
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the same stories. A politician did this, a politician said that. Or the economy: The
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economy is good. The economy is bad. The economy's good. The economy's bad; but it's the same
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stories all the time. It's very boring after a while. They're just "everyday" stories.
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They're nothing special.
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Usually, newspapers... how do they make their money? They write very sensational stories,
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very crazy stories, very unusual stories. These days, especially think about America,
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the elections, etc., all we hear about is Mitt Romney, Obama, Mitt Romney, Obama, Mitt
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Romney, Obama. It's already become "everyday" news. You understand what I'm saying? It's
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an adjective about the stories: Mitt Romney, Obama, they're just everyday people now. You
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see them all the time. You see them every day on the news.
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I hope you understand the difference between these two, and especially this expression,
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because it's quite common. It's an everyday expression, if you get my drift. People use
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this all the time. People use 'everyday' -- all the time. People use 'every day' all
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the time.
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At the end of this lesson, there's a quiz. Please take it on www.engvid.com . I will
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see you again very soon. Thanks.
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