The 11 Most Common Gramatical Mistakes And How to Avoid Them 1. Fewer vs. Less Use fewer when discussing countable objects. For example, He ate five fewer chocolates than the other guy, or fewer than 20 employees attended the meeting. Use less for intangible concepts, like time. For example, I spent less than one hour finishing this report. 2. Its vs. Its Normally, an apostrophe symbolizes possession. As in, I took the dogs bone. But because apostrophes also usually replace omitted letters — like dont — the its vs. its decision gets complicated. Use its as the possessive pronoun: I took its bone. For the shortened version of it is use the version with the apostrophe. As in, its raining. 3. Dangling Modifiers These are ambiguous, adjectival clauses at the beginning or end of sentences that often dont modify the right word or phrase. For example, if you say, Rotting in the refrigerator, our office manager threw the fruit in the garbage. The structure of that sentence implies your office manager is a zombie trapped in a chilly kitchen appliance. Make sure to place the modifying clause right next to the word or phrase it intends to describe. The correct version reads, Our office manager threw the fruit, rotting in the refrigerator, in the garbage. 4. Who vs. Whom Earlier this year, The New Republic published a review of Mark Leibovichs This Town. Regardless of his opinions, the author deserves praise. The title reads, Careful Whom You Call A Hypocrite, Washington. Yes, Alec MacGillis. Just yes. When considering whether to use who or whom, you have to rearrange the sentence in your own head. In the aforementioned case, whom you call a hypocrite changes to you call whom a hypocrite. Whom suits the sentence instead of who because the word functions as the object of the sentence, not the subject. Its not always easy to tell subjects from objects but to use an over-simplified yet good, general rule: subjects start sentences (or clauses), and objects end them. For reference, who is a hypocrite? would be a perfectly grammatically correct question to ask. 5. Me, Myself, And I Deciding when to use me, myself, or I also falls under the subject/object discussion. Me always functions as the object (except in that case); I is always the subject. And you only use myself when youve referred to yourself earlier in the sentence. Its called a reflexive pronoun — it corresponds to a pronoun previously in the sentence. For example, I made myself breakfast not my friend and myself made lunch. To decide usage in someone else and me/I situations, take the other person out of the sentence. My co-worker and I went to lunch. Is I went to lunch correct? Youre good then. 6. Lie vs. Lay Dear everyone, stop saying: Im going to go lay down. The word lay must have an object. Someone lays something somewhere. You lie. Unless you lay, which means lie but in the past tense. Okay, just look at the chart. Present Past Lie Lie Lay Lay Lay Laid 7. Irregular Verbs The English language has quite a few surprises.We cant list all the irregular verbs, but be aware they do exist. For example, no past tense exists for the word broadcast. Broadcasted isnt a word. Youd say, Yesterday, CNN broadcast a show. Sneak and hang also fall into the category of irregular verbs. Because the list of irregular verbs (and how to conjugate them) is so extensive, youll have to look into them individually. 8. Nor vs. Or Use nor before the second or farther of two alternatives when neither introduces the first. Think of it as or for negative sentences, and its not optional. For example, Neither my boss nor I understand the new program. You can also use nor with a negative first clause or sentence including not. For example, My boss didnt understand the program, nor did I. 9. Then vs. Than Theres a simple distinction between these two words. Use then when discussing time. As in, We had a meeting, and then we went to lunch. Include than in comparisons. This meeting was more productive than the last one. 10. Ending Sentences With Prepositions First of all, dont do it — usually. Second, for those who dont know, prepositions are any words that a squirrel can run with a tree (i.e. The squirrel ran around, by, through, up, down, around, etc. the tree). My boss explained company policy, which we had to abide by sounds awful. In most cases, you can just transpose the preposition to the beginning of the clause. My boss explained company policy, by which we had to abide, or better yet, rephrase the sentence to avoid this problem: My boss explained the mandatory company policy. 11. Subject (And Possessive Pronoun) And Verb Agreement This rule seems a bit counterintuitive, but most plural subjects take verbs without an s. For example, she types, but they type. The pronoun agreement comes into play when you add a possessive element to these sentences. She types on her computer, and they type on their computers. As a caveat, the pronoun someone requires her or his as the possessive. Read more: businessinsider/11-common-grammatical-mistakes-and-how-to-avoid-them-2013-9#ixzz3IIrNG2Ok
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 15:39:47 +0000
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