Thursday, October 10, 2013

apiece/a piece: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Thursday, October 10, 2013

apiece/a piece 
When you mean “each” the expression is “apiece”: these pizzas are really cheap—only ten dollars apiece.” But when “piece” actually refers to a piece of something, the required two-word expression is “a piece”: “This pizza is really expensive—they sell it by the slice for ten dollars a piece.”
Despite misspellings in popular music, the expression is not “down the road apiece”; it’s “down the road a piece.”

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