Common grammar mistakes!

[skylee]

What are some common grammar errors?

I've noticed that some people tend to write "use" instead of "used" or "suppose" instead of "supposed" when necessary, not realizing that the two words have completely different meanings.

For instance, "She use to go there often" should actually be "She useD to go there often" and "You are suppose to do that" should actually be "You are supposeD to do that".

Use –verb (used with object) 1. to employ for some purpose; put into service; make use of: to use a knife.
Used –verb (used without object) 9. to be accustomed, wont, or customarily found (used with an infinitive expressed or understood, and, except in archaic use, now only in the past): He used to go every day.
suppose –verb (used with object) 1. to assume (something), as for the sake of argument or as part of a proposition or theory: Suppose the distance to be one mile.
supposed -adj 1. Required: He is supposed to go to the store. 2. Permitted: We are not supposed to smoke here. 3. Firmly believed; expected: You're supposed to be my friend.

[remember_Cedric]

Common grammar mistakes! aka Parody of grammar mistakes!

Blah! I know I'm van (one) of them.

[pannonian]

Of instead of have. I could have done something. Shortened to I could've done something. Due to pronunciation, often incorrectly written as I could of done something.

Reign instead of rein. The metaphor is horse riding, and giving free rein means letting the horse lead, while if one wants to control the direction, one reins in the horse. A free reign makes no sense.

Loose instead of lose. There are no loosers in a game, unless their elastic snapped. The people who have been beaten are losers.

alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe

[Wanlie Tong]

1. Using the verb advise ( to give advice to) instead of the noun advice (a recommendation regarding a decision or course of conduct).

2. Writing excepted in place of accepted.

[sniffles]

Loose instead of lose. There are no loosers in a game, unless their elastic snapped. The people who have been beaten are losers.

alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe

Those are two of my "favorites" among common grammar errors, especially the apostrophes in possesives issue. I suspect that one is eventually going to become acceptable because people find it so confusing.

I like to give this example for loose/lose:
"After you lose weight, your pants will be loose."

Then/than is one I see frequently. Usually it's then being used when it should be than. Then is an adverb indicating an event happening immediately or soon afterward or next in order of time. Than is a conjunction used in comparative statements.
"After we go to the movie, then we'll go out to dinner."
"Tonight I would rather eat Chinese food than Japanese food."

Affect/effect is another one that confuses people. An effect has the ability to produce results or is produced by an agency or cause. Effect is a noun. An affect is a verb, meaning to act on or produce an effect.
"The economic crisis hasn't had any effect on me yet."
"How will the drop in housing prices affect you?"

[pannonian]

Affect/effect is another one that confuses people. An effect has the ability to produce results or is produced by an agency or cause. Effect is a noun. An affect is a verb, meaning to act on or produce an effect.
"The economic crisis hasn't had any effect on me yet."
"How will the drop in housing prices affect you?"

Actually effect is a verb as well as a noun, and means producing an effect. Eg. to effect change means to act to produce change. You're right about the other bit of affect though, which is to act on something. In the above example,

"The economic crisis hasn't had any effect on me yet, but it has effected a different approach in the country's government."

[dewyloony123]

- "who" vs. "whom"

- "your" vs. "you're"

- "different than" and "different to" vs. "different from" (an abominable mistake!)

- "its" vs. "it's" (an even more abominable mistake!)

Basically screwing up apostrophes and commas (splicing or omitting)--things that get you the following:

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.
'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
'Well, I'm a panda', he says, at the door. 'Look it up.'
The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'

(from Eats, Shoots & Leaves)

[jadebunny9]

This one is rather common and quite annoying as well:

"they're" and "their" and "there"

[kay &!*]

very very common.
would've/could've/should've = would of/could of/should of.
NO.
it's would have/could have/should have.

[Suet Seung]

My pet peeve is people with horrible grammar. If they've read so many books in English, the least they can do is know how to structure a sentence with proper syntax. The grammar of their native language is not the same as English grammar! It's annoying to read their writing. Yes. I've become a stickler for English grammar. On a forum, I don't expect people to have perfect punctuation, but at least have proper subject, verb, object order. Eh...

[pemberly]

i've always hated when ppl say "normalcy." it's normality!!!!!

[Ken Cheng]

i've always hated when ppl say "normalcy." it's normality!!!!!

Blame this man:

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While we're at it, this man:

$this->handle_bbcode_img_match('http://schema-root.org/people/career/journalists/dan_rather/dan_rather.gif')

...apparently is to blame for "HARASSment" becoming "haRASSment."

[Guo Xiang]

very very common.
would've/could've/should've = would of/could of/should of.
NO.
it's would have/could have/should have.

There's actually people who doesn't know what the -'ve- is? OH MY. That's very bad.

[tweety365]

Example of a common mistake I hear and see:

The boss has invited my friend and me. [correct]
The boss has invited my friend and I. [wrong]

[sniffles]

I've seen a lot of confusion between your and you're. Your is a possessive: Your house, your car, your friends. You're is a contraction of you are: You're going to the movies, you're tired, you're hungry.

These aren't grammar mistakes, but it drives me mad when people mispronounce certain words. It's not nucular power, it's nuclear. Your house was not sold by a realator; it's a realtor. Trees don't have foilage, they have foliage. Really, are these words that hard to say??

It really irritates me when newscasters or tv announcers mispronounce words.

[HuangYushi]

When people really believe that its and it's are the same and interchangeable. Annoys me to no end.

The next one is probably a Southeast Asian thing: ever is used as the opposite of never, as in:
I have ever been to the US, but I have never been to Disneyland.

The sentence sounds even worse in actual speech, as it tends to come out as:
I ever been to US, but I never been to Disneyland.

[oGaKirA]

Dang HuangYushi, good to see you back.

English is the most confusing language of all! First they teach you fundimentals then they throw words at you that break these fundimental rules. WTF!? Even the punctuations are inferior if compared to Spanish.

i.e. How many times have you read an English question sentence and didn't realize it should have been read in a question tone till you got to the end and saw the question mark? Happens to me all the time. Spanish question are enclosed with ¿ and ? letting you know from the start it is a question. Likewise with an exclamatory sentence.

I've taken Spanish for 2 years in Highschool and it was fairly easy to learn. I guess in general, all the Latin language derivatives are better structured?

What about them words that sound and spelled similar. stationary and stationery

btw, im no english expert so excuse me for all my errors.

[Sparky]

LOL Warren Harding had far more flaws than popularizing a word in our lexicon.

My pet peeve is people with horrible grammar. If they've read so many books in English, the least they can do is know how to structure a sentence with proper syntax. The grammar of their native language is not the same as English grammar! It's annoying to read their writing. Yes. I've become a stickler for English grammar. On a forum, I don't expect people to have perfect punctuation, but at least have proper subject, verb, object order. Eh...

I imagine you must be ripping your hair out every time you read Shakespeare then.

Well I'll be a maverick (ugh, McCain totally retired that word from the English language) and ask this - why do we even care so much about conforming to a set of arbitrary rules? What even defines 'correct grammar'? If a mistake is made by the majority, should it be considered erroneous anymore? Shouldn't we focus more on the brilliance of our ideas than the method by which we expound them?

[Yeung Gor]

grammar is like caviar, only the snobs cares about it.

[Ken Cheng]

grammar is like caviar, only the snobs cares about it.

Not really. Only the snobs will care to correct it for you without your asking for it, but it's useful for everyone. Grammar doesn't exist for its own sake. When grammar is used correctly, it makes everybody more easily understandable to everybody else and minimizes the chance that someone will be misunderstood.

As someone who makes a living teaching grammar, I can assure you that we don't do it for fun and games.