Editorial Lines
Personal error log for English writing. Each entry records a recurring mistake, its cause, and the fix. Grouped by category — not by post — so patterns accumulate over time.
False Cognates (PT → EN)
Mistakes caused by direct translation from Portuguese that produce a different meaning in English.
| Wrong | Right | Why | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| “the gains I just exposed” | “the gains I just described” | expor → expose (uncover something hidden), not present/describe | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-07) |
| “helps the team to escalate engines” | “helps the team scale” | escalar → scale (grow), not escalate (intensify/raise urgency) | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-07) |
| “the rule in an envelop” | “the rule in an envelope” | envelope is the English noun; envelop is a verb (to wrap/surround) | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-07) |
| “I can’t be different” | “I’m no different” | não posso ser diferente → “I’m no different” (same as everyone else) | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-07) |
| “laboral and boring work” | “tedious, boring work” | laboral (PT/ES) has no English equivalent; use tedious, menial, or labor-related depending on sense | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “what Steven Yegge told” | “what Steven Yegge said” | contar/dizer in PT both translate to tell/say; English tell needs a recipient (“told me”), say does not | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “I was hearing Estranged on Spotify” | “I was listening to Estranged on Spotify” | ouvir → both hear (passive) and listen to (active); music is always listen to | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “fatidic session” | “fateful session” | fatídico → fateful (consequential, ominous); fatidic is archaic/rare in English | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “in his participation on the podcast” | “during his appearance on the podcast” | participação → appearance/guest spot, not direct participation for talk shows/podcasts | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “face this transformation as the new typewriter” | “treat this transformation as the new typewriter” | encarar como → treat as / see as; face as is not idiomatic | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “right when things broke, see in the next lines” | “right when things broke, more on that below” | veja nas próximas linhas → English uses below / later in this post, not literal “next lines” | Going YOLO With Claude Code (2026-05-12) |
Articles & Prepositions
Small but frequent errors around articles (a/an/the) and prepositions (of/on/to/in).
| Wrong | Right | Rule | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| “monitoring an specific part” | “monitoring a specific part” | an before vowel sounds only; specific starts with /s/ | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-07) |
| “tracked by other tool” | “tracked by another tool” | another = one more singular; other needs a plural or article | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-07) |
| “keep track on them” | “keep track of them” | fixed phrase: keep track of | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-07) |
| “not enforced to all engineers” | “not enforced on all engineers” | enforce something on someone | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-07) |
| “in minor scale” | “on a smaller scale” | scale takes on, not in; minor is for importance, not size | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-07) |
| “not experts git” | “not Git experts” | adjective order: modifier before noun; proper noun capitalized | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-07) |
| “refer to IDs than names” | “refer to IDs rather than names” | comparisons of preference use rather than, not than alone | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-08) |
| “context window was higher then 50%” | “context window was higher than 50%” | then = time/sequence; than = comparison. Constant trap | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “consuming less tokens” | “consuming fewer tokens” | fewer for countable nouns, less for uncountable; tokens are countable | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “kept in the loop always” | “kept in the loop forever” / “always in the loop” | adverb placement: English puts frequency adverbs before the prepositional phrase or replaces with a stronger word | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “smarter everyday” | “smarter every day” | everyday (one word) = adjective (“an everyday task”); every day (two words) = adverb (“happens every day”) | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “expensive software of wait” | “expensive software or wait” | typo for or; not a rule, just a hygiene point — proofread short words | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “the faucet of your kitchen” | “your kitchen faucet” | English prefers possessive noun-compound order over PT-style of-phrases for everyday objects | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “I’m impressed on how nice” | “I’m impressed by how nice” | impressed by (the cause) / impressed with (the result); never impressed on | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “put them in practice” | “put them into practice” | fixed phrase: put X into practice (movement preposition, even when figurative) | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
Sentence Structure
Errors in clause construction, punctuation between clauses, adverb placement, and parallel structure.
| Wrong | Right | Rule | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| “I don’t need to cover the basics, they’re well written” | “…the basics; they’re well written” | comma splice: two independent clauses need a semicolon, period, or conjunction | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-08) |
| “that’s optional; a side project for periods…” | “that’s optional, a side project for periods…” | semicolons join independent clauses; an appositive takes a comma | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-08) |
| “it’ll help you scale, it’ll make audits easier, because it’ll improve…” | “…scale, make audits easier, and improve…” | parallel lists use and for the final item; don’t repeat because mid-list | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-08) |
| “engineers usually are not Git experts” | “engineers are usually not Git experts” | adverbs of frequency (usually, often, rarely) go between the auxiliary and main verb | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-08) |
| “Claude and me were re-sorting” | “Claude and I were re-sorting” | subject pronoun (I) for subject of verb; me is for objects. Trick: drop the other party — “me was re-sorting” is wrong | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “checkpoints that allows you” | “checkpoints that let you” / “allow you” | subject-verb agreement: plural antecedent (checkpoints) takes plural verb | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “ability of AI recovering the file” | “AI’s ability to recover the file” | English uses possessive + infinitive (X’s ability to Y), not of X Y-ing (Portuguese gerund pattern) | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “stuff that otherwise I’d judge infeasible due to the lack of time I had” | “things I’d otherwise judge infeasible given how little time I have” | post-modifier overload — restructure with given or because + clean clause; avoid stacking of-phrases | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| “I have my concerns but I’m pumped anyway” | “I have my concerns, but I’m pumped anyway” | coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS: for/and/nor/but/or/yet/so) joining two independent clauses needs a comma before it | Going YOLO With Claude Code (2026-05-12) |
| “maybe later I go for OpenFinance connectors, not now” | “maybe later I’ll go for OpenFinance connectors, not now” | future intention in English needs an explicit modal (will/’ll); PT uses bare present for near-future plans, English does not | Going YOLO With Claude Code (2026-05-12) |
| “recovering the data from it’s own logs” | “recovering the data from its own logs” | it’s = contraction of it is / it has; its = possessive. Constant trap — grep before publish | Going YOLO With Claude Code (2026-05-12) |
| “two days of back and forth with Claude” | “two days of back-and-forth with Claude” | when used as a noun, back-and-forth takes hyphens; bare back and forth is an adverb | Going YOLO With Claude Code (2026-05-12) |
Draft Hygiene
Notes left in the file that would have published as-is.
| Issue | Fix | Source |
|---|---|---|
What to write: / Direction: preamble left in body |
Delete before publishing; use <!-- TODO --> comments for private notes |
Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-07) |
QUESTION: How to ensure only certain teams... inline note |
Resolve or remove; HTML comments won’t render in Quarto | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-07) |
(review this link, should be internal) inline note |
Same as above | Detection-as-Code, Then What? (2026-04-07) |
Missing YAML frontmatter entirely (no title, description, date, image) |
Add frontmatter before drafting body; pre-commit validates required fields | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
Generic placeholder slug log/ai/ — too vague for the actual topic |
Rename directory to descriptive slug (e.g., log/plaintext-accounting-claude/) before first commit |
Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
xhigh effort — non-standard term left in published meta line |
Use documented Claude Code effort levels (low, medium, high); proofread shorthand before publishing | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |
| Typo cluster: postponning, convertions, unsuccessfuly, rationle, typewritter, breath (for breathe) | Run a spell-check pass on the full draft before submitting for review | Plain-Text Accounting With Claude (2026-05-13) |