Prior or Previous

Here’s a sentence about SpaceX:

Each outfitted with a quartet of arms and pair of nets, it was the first time both ships successfully made it out into the Atlantic for a simultaneous fairing catch attempt, having been foiled by high seas during a prior November outing.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-fairing-recovery-ships-port-return-battle-scars/

Now my rant:

“Prior” means something has more importance, for example, the senior exec has a prior claim on company funds.

“Previous” means earlier in time. So that sentence has the wrong word!

PS—”Successfully” in the second line is unnecessary. If the boats made it to the destination, the trip was by definition successful. You can’t have “unsuccessfully made it.”

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Many words have more than one meaning. You can get humor by thinking up a situation when either meaning can make sense and you capitalize on the misunderstanding. How would you state the definition of these two meanings?

However, you don’t want to do this when you explain something. The rule is to be clear!

Whenever you write expositorily, spend some time thinking about how you might be misunderstood, and write to prevent the misunderstanding.

Well, how to write a review that speaks ill of something. I presume your reviews are all well written. These example images are so colorful, I think you’ll enjoy them, and the color should help you remember the main principle behind writing a scathing review:

Don’t waste your time panning mediocre bad things. Save your effort for the really bad big fish.

Here’s a selection from a review by the New York Times restaurant critic:

“The shrimp cocktail tasted like cold latex dipped in ketchup and horseradish.” And “[I] look forward to eating the German fried potatoes as much as [I look] forward to finding a new, irregularly shaped mole.”

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/insight-what-a-peter-luger-steak-house-review-can-teach-lawyers-about-effective-legal-writing

Many times you’ll encounter things that aren’t particularly good, but they also aren’t particularly important.

If you gotta criticize, don’t waste your time.

Here’s a pic of the restaurant. I don’t have a picture of the reviewer, Pete Wells.

When you write instructions, be sure to get them right:

• Don’t leave anything out
• Get the instructions in order!

Notes, by the way, generally go before the instructions. They give context.

Two rules of thumb:

• Test all instructions! If the reader gets it wrong, the problem is with the instructions.
• Bad documentation must not be justified with the excuse that the reader will figure it out.

Many writers use “they” as a singular, particularly when they don’t know or they want to conceal the gender of whom or what they are referring to. Writers have done this for a long time (centuries) and sometimes it feels natural, even, but this example jumped out at me:

Authorities have arrested an individual who is allegedly part of The Chuckling Squad, the hacker group that compromised the Twitter CEO’s account in August, according to Vice. The alleged member was arrested around two weeks ago, but isn’t named because they are a minor. 

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gyzawx/authorities-arrest-suspected-jack-dorsey-hacker

(I should add that the quote is from a summary on the Recode Daily website, though the usage occurs in a similar sentence in the original (linked) article.