When someone graduates high school, gets married, has a baby, or buys a house, you are going to want to show them that you are happy for them and proud of what they have accomplished. There is a common word used for this, and it often gets misspelled.
If you want to congratulate someone for a job well done, the proper spelling is congratulations. Congradulations is a very common misspelling. It is easy to see where the confusion comes from, since the word is commonly used when one GRADUATES to the next step in life.
Congratulations
Congratulations can be used as a noun or an interjection. When used as an interjection, the word will be used alone and followed by an exclamation point. When used as a noun, it can be used at any point in a sentence and with other words.
The definition of congratulations is to express pleasure or joy to someone. It is the act of congratulating someone for their good fortune or success.
Examples
You got accepted to Columbia? That’s great, congratulations!
Congratulations on the birth of your baby!
I see your new car outside, congratulations.
Congratulations on taking the first steps of your weight loss journey.
I hear congratulations are in order for the newest edition to your family.
Congratulations to you both for purchasing your first home together.
That news is so amazing, congratulations!
Congratulations vs. Congradulations
There is only one right way to use this word, and it is to spell it with a T. If you spell it with a D, it is misspelled and not proper. If you have a hard time remembering the proper spelling, think of the D in congradulations as representing the word DON’T as in don’t use this spelling.
Congradulations is often misspelled like this because people think of the word graduate. Either someone is graduating from school or graduating to the next step in their life. This is why many people assume the word is spelled with a D, because it seems to make sense.
You can also think of the T in congratulations as THAT’s great. You are congratulating someone for something they have achieved, so you want them to know THAT you are proud of them and THAT they did a great job.
Congratulation or Congratulations?
Congratulation is the singular version of congratulations. It isn’t used anywhere near as often as congratulations. For example, one might send a “note of congratulation”.
Congratulation is also used when it comes from a group of people. For example, a bunch of people offered fake congratulation.
The singular congratulation also works to denote the action of congratulating. For example, in congratulation, there was a party planned to surprise her.
When you are wishing to someone, the proper word will be congratulations. When talking about the action of wishing congratulations, the proper word will be congratulation.
Congratulations On or Congratulations For?
It is common to wonder which preposition is proper after the word congratulations. The correct answer is that it depends on what you are saying.
You use the preposition “on” when you are expressing congratulations in the context of an event. For example, congratulations on getting married or congratulations on winning the lottery.
You use the preposition for when congratulations if being used to offer praise to someone for an achievement. For example, congratulations for getting promoted or congratulations for saving enough money to buy your new car.
Congratulations can also be given to someone. For example, a company’s CEO can “offer congratulations” to all the employees for a job well done.
Congrats or Congratulations
“Congrats” is just a shortened version of “congratulations”. “Congrats” is very informal and often only used in text messages because people don’t want to type the full word “congratulations”
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