4.23.2012

Are you an old hat?

From Rachel Lee Harris’ Q&A column in the travel section of last Sunday’s New York Times:

At 28 years old, Soraya Darabi is an old hat at staying on the cutting edge of social media.

Something which is old-fashioned is “old hat.” What Ms Harris meant (as do others who make the same mistake) is “an old hand.”

2 comments:

frogprof said...

"Paul Brians' latest blog post explains why The New York Times should come hat in hand with an correction."

"An correction"? Really?

Tom said...

For those interested, frogprof is referring to my typo on a post over at the Common Errors in English Usage Daily Entry blog .

I regret the error.