Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / New
Stats: 3,152,558 members, 7,816,349 topics. Date: Friday, 03 May 2024 at 09:59 AM

10 Grammar Mistakes You Should Avoid [part 2] - Literature - Nairaland

Nairaland Forum / Entertainment / Literature / 10 Grammar Mistakes You Should Avoid [part 2] (779 Views)

English Grammar Lesson / English Grammar Lesson / Story: Common Mistakes Ladies Make In A Relationship (2) (3) (4)

(1) (Reply)

10 Grammar Mistakes You Should Avoid [part 2] by TRWConsult(m): 5:49pm On Sep 22, 2015
Mistake 6: Incorrect use of subject pronouns
INCORRECT: The owner was most kind to my wife and I as we toured the grounds.
CORRECT : The owner was most kind to my wife and me as we toured the grounds.
I is a subject pronoun form. It is correctly used as the subject of a verb. Its object form is me, which is used as the object of a verb or, as in this example, the object of a preposition (to). Not all English pronouns retain an object form. The pronouns that do have subject and object forms are he/him, she/her, we/us,they/them, and who/whom.

Mistake 7: Inappropriate use of reflexive pronoun forms
INCORRECT: Jack and myself built the company from scratch.
CORRECT : Jack and I built the company from scratch.
A pronoun that ends in -self or -selves is called a reflexive pronoun. This type of pronoun refers to a noun or personal pronoun that occurs elsewhere in the sentence. For example, “He cut himself shaving.” In this example, himself refers to the same person as the one meant by He. A typical error is to use a reflexive pronoun in place of a personal pronoun:
INCORRECT: Thank you for everything you did for myself and my family.
CORRECT : Thank you for everything you did for me and my family.
Note: A more polite usage is to put me last in the phrase: Thank you for everything you did for my family and me.

Mistake 8: Incorrect use of did instead of had in certain “if clauses”
One use of the conjunction if is to introduce a clause that states an action that would have changed an outcome. For example, “If I hadn’t missed the train, I would be in London now.” A common error is to usedid instead of had, as in this headline:
INCORRECT: [Celebrity] thinks he would be dead now if he didn’t give up alcohol and drugs
CORRECT : [Celebrity] thinks he would be dead now if he hadn’t given up alcohol and drugs
The person mentioned in the headline actually said (correctly), “I honestly don’t think I’d be alive if I hadn’t stopped drinking.” The tense required is the past perfect (had + past participle).

Mistake 9: Incorrect irregular verb forms
Most English verbs form the past and past participle by adding -ed to the base form. For example:
walk, walked, (has) walked
believe, believed, (has) believed
jump, jumped, (has) jumped
However, a few high-frequency verbs have irregular past forms, for example:
run, ran, (has) run
go, went, (has) gone
come, came, (has) come
Errors with irregular verb forms are becoming common in the media and in articles written by university graduates. Such errors are perhaps evidence that elementary school teachers no longer drill their students on the irregular verb forms. Here are typical errors:
INCORRECT: Mary loves to read, has ran for office and has an articulate way of telling it like it is.—Biographical note, KZNU.
CORRECT : Mary loves to read, has run for office and has an articulate way of telling it like it is.
INCORRECT: Deluna-Martinez is alleged to have went into one student’s account and dropped that student’s classes.—News item, KRCR
CORRECT : Deluna-Martinez is alleged to have gone into one student’s account and dropped that student’s classes.
INCORRECT: Deep Impact could have just so happened to hit one of these cometesimals, while the gas seen before impact might have came from a different region on the comet with different chemistry.—Scientific article, NASA site.
CORRECT : Deep Impact could have just so happened to hit one of these cometesimals, while the gas seen before impact might have come from a different region on the comet with different chemistry.
Note: A cometesimal is a “mini-comet.”

Mistake 10: Omitting that when it is needed after say
When there is no intervening conjunction, that may be omitted after the verb say:
The witness said she overheard the defendant threaten to burn the man’s house down.
However, if a conjunction such as after, although, because, before, in addition to, until, or while intervenes between the verb say and its object, that is needed to avoid ambiguity:
INCORRECT: Santana said after he stopped recording, he watched for a few more minutes but never saw anyone perform CPR.
CORRECT : Santana said that after he stopped recording, he watched for a few more minutes but never saw anyone perform CPR.

Credit: DWT

1 Like

Re: 10 Grammar Mistakes You Should Avoid [part 2] by billark: 1:13pm On Apr 06
Dont say the brooks family hosted a family dinner party last weekend.Instead say, the brooks[url][/url]' family hostat a dinner party last weeend.
https://grammarminds.medium.com

(1) (Reply)

Valentine:the Morning After / Your Gemini / Love Writing Competitions? Join The Flash: Blackout

(Go Up)

Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health
religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket

Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 16
Disclaimer: Every Nairaland member is solely responsible for anything that he/she posts or uploads on Nairaland.