The most important rule to writing and speaking well is to be attentive to all grammar rules. Unfortunately, this is a rule many people find difficult to obey. As a result, when they speak or write, their speeches and compositions are replete with blunders too obvious to ignore. Anyway, I present to you some of the most common daily grammar mistakes people make and their correct versions. You must avoid such mistakes please. Learn!
1. When people use the word whom as a subject
INCORRECT: The Police Inspector radioed his deputies to stop the driver, whom, according to reports, appeared to have been under the influence of intoxicants.
CORRECT: The Police Inspector radioed his deputies to stop the driver, who, according to reports, appeared to have been under the influence of intoxicants.
Explanation: In this sentence, the pronoun is the subject of the verb “appeared” and therefore requires the subject form “who”. The object form of who is whom which functions as the object of a verb or as the object of a preposition.
2. When people unnecessarily use the word would when talking about a wish about the past
INCORRECT: Ten things I wish I would have known when I was a teen.
CORRECT: Ten things I wish I had known when I was a teen.
Explanation: The opportunity for knowing the ten things existed in the past; not anymore. The correct tense to use therefore, is the past perfect (had + past participle).
3. When people make the mistake of Subject-Verb disagreement with delayed subject
INCORRECT: There goes Funke and Funsho on their way to the stream.
CORRECT: There go Funke and Funsho on their way to the stream.
Explanation: Subjects and verbs must agree in number. When a sentence begins with here or there, the true subject of the sentence follows the verb. “Funke and Funsho” is a plural subject. Therefore, the verb “go” must also be plural: “Funke and Funsho go.”
4. When people incorrectly make use of object pronouns
INCORRECT: Me and my brothers all have college degrees in Business.
CORRECT: My brothers and I all have college degrees in Business.
Explanation: Several English pronouns retain different forms that indicate their function in a sentence. “Me” is an object form. In the example, it is incorrectly used as the subject of the verb “have”. Please note that other object forms often used incorrectly are him, her, us, them, and whom.
5. When people incorrectly use 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.
Explanation: The word “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.
6. The Inappropriate use of reflexive pronoun forms
INCORRECT: Chidinma and myself built the company from scratch.
CORRECT: Chidinma and I built the company from scratch.
Explanation: Reflexive pronoun is a type of pronoun that ends in -self or -selves. This type of pronoun refers to a noun or personal pronoun that occurs elsewhere in a sentence. For example, “She cut herself shaving.” In this example, “herself” refers to the same person as the one meant by She. A typical error is to use a reflexive pronoun in place of a personal pronoun. Do not do it.
7. When people incorrectly use 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 commonplace by articles written by even very learned fellows; much less teens! These errors [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][perhaps] evidence the lapse of Primary School English language Teachers to drill their students on the irregular verb forms.
Avoid these every day grammar errors unless you want to be mediocre. Do not be mediocre please…
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