These sentences can help you get a sense of how the phrase ‘on a side note’ can be used in everyday speech or writing. On a side note, did you hear that they recently found a huge cache of Viking coins in Sweden? I’ve always been fascinated by Norse mythology.It’s going to be hot, and I don’t want us to get dehydrated. On a side note, don’t forget to bring some extra water bottles. We need to leave early tomorrow if we want to find parking for the event.On a side note, do you know how often the public buses run here? The price of gas is getting so outrageous that I’ve started biking to work when the weather is nice.On a side note, I think it might be time to replace the batteries in our computer. This new software is becoming the bane of my existence.On a side note, I’m going to start sending out resumes next week. Losing that vendor was really the canary in a coal mine for the business.On a side note, I have a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon, so I’ll be late for dinner. I am leaving for work at 8 am on Friday.Because of the meaning of the phrase, it is commonly used at the beginning of a sentence that follows a statement regarding the main topic being discussed. Now that we’ve taken a look at what ‘on a side note’ means and its origin as a phrase let's look at how you can use this idiom in a sentence. How to Use ‘On a Side Note’ in a Sentence When using 'on a side note' in conversation or in writing, you are essentially referring to the main topic as the text in a figurative book and the comment you are about to make as a note in the margins. In a text or document, a side note is something written in the margins that are related to a specific point made on the page. Though there isn't a ton of available information about the origin of the phrase 'on a side note,' it is interesting to try and imagine how it emerged. It wasn’t until about the 1550s that the word 'note' started to be used in reference to ‘ a mark in the margin of a book calling attention to something in the text.’ ‘Note,’ on the other hand, has its roots as a musical term as far back as 1300 and dates from the early 14th century with the meaning ‘notice, attention.’ The word ‘side’ is a late Old English word that is connected to the Old Norse word ‘siðr.’ The term ‘side note’, meaning a ‘note made or placed at the side of a written or printed page,’ dates back to at least 1776. ‘As a side note,’ however, appears as early as the 1860s and becomes more frequently used in the mid-1930s. Using the Google Books nGram Viewer linked above, though, we can see that the usage of the phrase in the books scoured by Google doesn’t begin until the late 1980s. It is difficult to determine the precise moment when people started using the phrase ‘on a side note’ as a way of connecting a partially related point to the topic being discussed. You might also hear someone use the phrase ‘as a side note’ in a way that is basically interchangeable with ‘on a side note.’ You can use the Google Books nGram Viewer to see that the phrase ‘as a side note’ is slightly more common than ‘on a side note’ when searching through English books from the year 1800 to 2008.Įven though 'as a side note' appears to be more common than 'on a side note,' you can expect that anyone who understands what one of these phrases means will not be confused if you were to use the version using the alternative preposition to get your point across. When ‘on a side note’ is used in this way, the more proper preposition to use would be ‘in,’ as in ‘in a side note.’ That being said, you still might hear someone use the preposition 'on' when directing your attention to a physical side note in a text.
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