Everyday vs Every Day

Spy_on_the_Inside

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I was doing some work on an online Spanish translations, and I found out the words 'everyday' and 'every day' translate differently. Does that mean they mean different things in the English language?

This question has been driving me crazy, and I'd love it if someone could tell me.
 

Corussa

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I don't know about Spanish, but in English:

Every day = each day. E.g. I visit AbsoluteWrite every day.

Everyday = (adjective) commonplace, ordinary. E.g. Posting at AbsoluteWrite is an everyday occurrence.

:)
 

Kevin Nelson

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Indeed, it's not really the case that "every day" and "everyday" have different meanings. You use one or the other depending on the grammatical role in the sentence. I believe the basic form is "every day," an adverbial phrase. When the phrase is used instead as an adjective, it turns into "everyday."

(That's a fairly common pattern in English; for example, the verb phrase "to log out" turns into the noun "logout.")
 

blacbird

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Indeed, it's not really the case that "every day" and "everyday" have different meanings. You use one or the other depending on the grammatical role in the sentence. I believe the basic form is "every day," an adverbial phrase.

Nope. They simply don't mean the same thing, in any context I can think of. "Every day" is not an adverbial phrase, but an adjective ("every", meaning "each") modifying a noun ("day").

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/every

It's not uncommonly modified further to combinations like "every other day" or "every third day" or "every week". None of these has a single-word adjectival equivalent (e.g., "everyweek"). Substitute the synonym "each" and you have the same problem: no single adjective "eachday".

When the phrase is used instead as an adjective, it turns into "everyday."

In this case, it's an adjective by itself ("everyday", meaning "ordinary") modifying some other noun.


(That's a fairly common pattern in English; for example, the verb phrase "to log out" turns into the noun "logout.")

But that isn't analogous to the phrase in question. If you can provide an example of where "every day" and "everyday" have synonymous meaning, I'll acknowledge it. But I can't come up with one.

caw
 

Kevin Nelson

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Nope. They simply don't mean the same thing, in any context I can think of. "Every day" is not an adverbial phrase, but an adjective ("every", meaning "each") modifying a noun ("day").

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/every

It's not uncommonly modified further to combinations like "every other day" or "every third day" or "every week". None of these has a single-word adjectival equivalent (e.g., "everyweek"). Substitute the synonym "each" and you have the same problem: no single adjective "eachday".

In this case, it's an adjective by itself ("everyday", meaning "ordinary") modifying some other noun.

But that isn't analogous to the phrase in question. If you can provide an example of where "every day" and "everyday" have synonymous meaning, I'll acknowledge it. But I can't come up with one.

caw

I see your point about the phrase "every day" being a noun modified by an adjective. I overlooked that possibility--now that I think of it, it seems like the phrase can have two different grammatical roles.

Consider, for example, "Every day is a new day" versus "I wear these clothes every day." In the former sentence, the phrase is clearly a noun modified by an adjective. But in the latter sentence, the phrase is being used adverbially. It seems fairly clear that "every day" is not the direct or indirect object of "wear." Grammatically speaking, the sentence is analogous to "I wear these clothes often." And in that sentence, "often" is an adverb.

I said that "every day" and "everyday" had basically the same meaning, but due to their different grammatical function I wouldn't call them synonyms. It's like "thirsty" versus "thirst." The difference between those words, I would say, is not in their substantive meaning but in how they are used in relation to other words. (Some languages would translate both "thirsty" and "thirst" to the same word. That doesn't mean the word they are translated to must have multiple senses.)

Compare "I wear these clothes every day" and "These are my everyday clothes." Those seem to mean pretty much the same thing to me.
 

absitinvidia

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Compare "I wear these clothes every day" and "These are my everyday clothes." Those seem to mean pretty much the same thing to me.


But they don't. Compare these:

They had a friendly conversation every day.

Their everyday conversation was friendly.



See the fundamental difference there?
 

Kevin Nelson

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But they don't. Compare these:

They had a friendly conversation every day.

Their everyday conversation was friendly.



See the fundamental difference there?

Maybe I'm missing something, but I really don't see such a big difference there. To the extent there is a difference, it looks to me like it pertains to the word "conversation." (The first sentence uses "conversation" as a count noun, and the second uses it as a mass noun. I.e. it is a matter of countable individual conversations versus conversation in general.)
 

absitinvidia

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Maybe I'm missing something, but I really don't see such a big difference there. To the extent there is a difference, it looks to me like it pertains to the word "conversation." (The first sentence uses "conversation" as a count noun, and the second uses it as a mass noun. I.e. it is a matter of countable individual conversations versus conversation in general.)


One describes frequency (every day) and the other, content (ordinary). Big, big difference.

In the first sentence, they spoke each and every day. In the second sentence, we have no idea whatsoever how frequently they spoke, only that when they had casual, ordinary conversation, it was friendly. Could have happened as rarely as three or four times.

I don't see any similarity whatsoever in meaning there.
 

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Compare "I wear these clothes every day" and "These are my everyday clothes." Those seem to mean pretty much the same thing to me.
But they don't mean the same thing. I have lots of everyday clothes which I don't wear every day. :)
 

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Indeed, it's not really the case that "every day" and "everyday" have different meanings. You use one or the other depending on the grammatical role in the sentence. I believe the basic form is "every day," an adverbial phrase. When the phrase is used instead as an adjective, it turns into "everyday."

(That's a fairly common pattern in English; for example, the verb phrase "to log out" turns into the noun "logout.")
Isn't the grammatical category for "every day" that of noun phrase? And wouldn't the grammatical category for "everyday" be that of adjective phrase?

The syntactic functions that can be fulfilled by some members of those two different grammatical categories might, at times, in certain situations, overlap each other. But often there will be many situations where they don't. A reason for that is that they are two different grammatical categories: one category is that of noun phrase, the other category is that of adjective phrase.

Since those two phrases--"every day" and "everyday"--are in different categories, then often they will be fulfilling different syntactic functions, which means that often they will also be involved in helping to fulfill different semantic roles. And thus, those two phrases will often not have the same meanings. :)
 
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F.E.

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Originally Posted by absitinvidia

But they don't. Compare these:
1. They had a friendly conversation every day.
2. Their everyday conversation was friendly.
See the fundamental difference there?
Maybe I'm missing something, but I really don't see such a big difference there. To the extent there is a difference, it looks to me like it pertains to the word "conversation." (The first sentence uses "conversation" as a count noun, and the second uses it as a mass noun. I.e. it is a matter of countable individual conversations versus conversation in general.)
Let me help you out here by tweaking the above two examples into these two:
1b. They had friendly conversations every day.
2b. Their everyday conversations were friendly.
Now both examples involve the plural noun "conversations". :)
 

Kevin Nelson

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Well, it appears that the word "everyday" has a somewhat different meaning for me than it does for some people. For example, if I pointed to a closet and said "These are my everyday clothes" then to me that only seems strictly and literally true if I wear something in that closet every day. Of course, the word (like many other words) can be used in a loose and metaphorical sense. But if I heard "Their everyday conversation is friendly," that would imply to me that they talk, if not literally every single day, at least quite often.

Words sometimes mean different things to different people--I don't know if I'm in the minority here, but it's good to learn what other people think. I'll be a little more careful with "everyday" in the future.
 

absitinvidia

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Well, it appears that the word "everyday" has a somewhat different meaning for me than it does for some people. For example, if I pointed to a closet and said "These are my everyday clothes" then to me that only seems strictly and literally true if I wear something in that closet every day. Of course, the word (like many other words) can be used in a loose and metaphorical sense. But if I heard "Their everyday conversation is friendly," that would imply to me that they talk, if not literally every single day, at least quite often.

Words sometimes mean different things to different people--I don't know if I'm in the minority here, but it's good to learn what other people think. I'll be a little more careful with "everyday" in the future.


Ah, I see the problem. You're in the minority because, and I say this gently, you've got the wrong meaning of "everyday." It's not a matter of what other people think, it's a matter of the word actually meaning something other than what you think it does.
 

Kevin Nelson

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Ah, I see the problem. You're in the minority because, and I say this gently, you've got the wrong meaning of "everyday." It's not a matter of what other people think, it's a matter of the word actually meaning something other than what you think it does.

Words have no meanings apart from what people think, so it is a matter of what people think. Thought is what creates meaning.
 

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Words have no meanings apart from what people think, so it is a matter of what people think. Thought is what creates meaning.

One of my thoughts is you may be standing in a pasture shoveling bs in a fast flurry hoping to confuse a group of people who certainly own dictionaries.

My other thought is you might want to stop shoveling while the hole isn't too far over your head.
 

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Words have no meanings apart from what people think, so it is a matter of what people think. Thought is what creates meaning.
Hopefully dictionaries will provide that sort of info, as to the common definitions and the usage of words. Though many dictionaries can be weak on that, as some dictionaries are better than others.

What's perhaps somewhat related to this is the issue of "awhile" vs "a while". Some dictionaries still can be misleading on this issue, and for this one, a good usage dictionary might be more helpful--especially for a fiction writer. :)
 

absitinvidia

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Words have no meanings apart from what people think, so it is a matter of what people think. Thought is what creates meaning.

That may well be, but it doesn't stop me from being correct when I say that "everyday" (adjective) and "daily" (adjective) are not synonyms.
 

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No - accepted definition is what creates and establishes the meaning of individual words.

And your thinking re the meaning of 'everyday' and 'every day' is totally wrong.

Stop wriggling - you stuck yourself on this hook.

Words have no meanings apart from what people think, so it is a matter of what people think. Thought is what creates meaning.
 

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As to the issue of "every day" vs "everyday":

I tend to cherry pick my info :D from general dictionaries and usage dictionaries and other sources, because, well, ...

So, ... To start off with, I'm a type of AmE speaker. (It is possible that the dialect of a speaker might be part of this issue; but I don't know.)

To me, the following example might be usable to show a situation where the noun phrase "every day" has a meaning that is very similar to a meaning of the adjective "everyday":
1. In these jungles, a five minute shower of rain before breakfast is an every day occurrence.
2. In these jungles, a five minute shower of rain before breakfast is an everyday occurrence.​
I could see #1 as maybe having two related interpretations: a) there is a morning rain burst each day; b) it is rather routine to have a morning rain burst and a person should probably expect to see one daily.

While for #2, I'd probably interpret as meaning that: a) it is rather routine to have a morning rain burst; b) it is not unexpected to have a morning rain burst; c) often there is a morning rain burst; d) almost every day :) there is a morning rain burst.

Note that in #1, the noun phrase "every day" is being used as an attributive (or pre-head) modifier of the head noun "occurrence"--which is basically the same function that is being done by the adjective "everyday". That is, both phrases are fulfilling a similar function in the two examples: the function of being a pre-head modifier. I'm sorta thinking that it is because of that as the reason why the meanings of sentences #1 and #2 are so very similar, or could be very similar, to each other.

But for most types of sentences, I'm kinda expecting that the meanings of those sentences will be significantly different depending on whether they used the noun phrase "every day" or the adjective phrase "everyday".
.
.
If we look at various sources--general purpose dictionaries and usage dictionaries--we might see various, er, definitions and explanations as to this issue of "every day" vs "everyday".
 
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In the New Oxford American Dictionary (iMac) on the entry "everyday":
everyday
adjective [ attrib. ]
happening or used every day; daily : everyday chores like shopping and housework.
• commonplace : everyday drugs like aspirin.

USAGE The adjective everyday, 'pertaining to every day, ordinary,' is correctly spelled as one word ( : carrying out their everyday activities), but the adverbial phrase every day, meaning 'each day,' is always spelled as two words ( : it rained every day).
The examples are good, imo. For those examples are sorta using the meaning of "routine"--not the meaning of "daily". Unfortunately, this dictionary actually used the phrase "every day" :( and also used the word "daily" :( as the major part of its definition of everyday. To me, this dictionary's definition clashes with its examples. The examples are good, but its definition is faulty; imo. (And its usage note seems to be better than its definition info, as it describes the noun phrase "every day" as meaning "each day". :) )

(Note that it uses terminology that seems to be commonly found in a traditional grammar.)
 

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Words have no meanings apart from what people think, so it is a matter of what people think. Thought is what creates meaning.

No, thought is not what creates meaning; accepted usage is what creates meaning.

You can go around thinking that 'chair' means what everyone else uses the word 'elephant' for, but when you say 'chair' everyone else will still think of a 'chair' and not understand that you mean 'elephant'.

The adjective 'everyday' might well have grown out of 'every day', but it no longer means 'each day'; it now means 'ordinary'.

To wit:

Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary said:
everyday: adj (ca. 1623) encountered or used routinely or typically : ORDINARY (~ clothes)

I'll check my Oxford dictionary when I get home, but I'm sure it will say essentially the same thing.
 

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And to confuse the issue, it seems that some speakers are now using the single word "everyday" where the two-word phrase "every day" would probably be expected by most.

In the usage dictionary Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage, page 320:
everyday, every day
The single word everyday is an adjective ("an everday occurrence," "part of everyday life"); the two-word phrase combining every and day functions either as a noun ("Every day is new") or as an adverb ("I see her every day"). The adverbial phrase is now frequently written as a single word:
Everyday it seems as though I am treated to matching scandals--Meg Greenfield, Newsweek, 16 Nov. 1987

. . . the junk we get on e-mail everyday--Bill Ott, Booklist, 15 Oct. 1997
This form may well get into the dictionaries someday, but for now the two-word styling for the adverbial phrase is still more common.
Thankfully that type of usage is not standard (yet, or so far).

I am a little surprised--and disappointed--that they didn't discuss the difference in meaning between "every day" and "everyday". (I'm not exactly sure if there was a reason why they didn't do that; that is, if that implies something.)
 

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Earlier, I had glanced at an online free Merriam-Webster, and in it was this definition and examples:
everyday adjective

Definition of EVERYDAY
: encountered or used routinely or typically : ordinary <everyday clothes>
Examples of EVERYDAY
-- Don't let the problems of everyday life get you down.
-- <we're just an everyday family, with a dog and a cat and bills to pay>​
That definition is much closer to what I would've expected. :)
 

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Words have no meanings apart from what people think, so it is a matter of what people think. Thought is what creates meaning.

Say what? Words have meaning because they're assigned meaning by users. It is not a matter of what people think. You can think all day long that "red" means an ice cream sundae is about to land on your head, but this doesn't make it so.

Word meanings are, if not universal, then very close to it. We all have to accept the same meanings, or we can't communicate. All you're doing is failing to understand what some words mean, and no matter what you think, they still do not mean what you think they do. Yu get it wrong, and rather than looking it up, you justify it by saying it means whatever you think it means. Not hardly.

You can think all day long that "everyday" means whatever you wish, but as soon as you use it in print, editors will correct you, if they bother reading another word.

If I read one of your manuscripts, I have no idea what you were thinking. I do know what the words actually mean, however, and if it seems you do not, you'll get an instant rejection.