Annoying Grammatical Errors
Di Dòmhnaich, 7 Am Màrt 2010
| 164·11·4·21 17 Rethemonth 1566 |
This post is just a bit of a rant really, in relation to the degradation of our language in these times. It is one thing for poor use of language in everyday speech, but there is an increasing tendency, probably due to use of the internet, for the written (or typed) language to be sloppy and incorrect. This article just details some of the most irritating of these that seem to be creeping in and becoming the norm these days. I will state here that I am not talking about valid changes in the language, i.e. the gradual change in the meaning of words over time that is interesting and revealing and has been happening since time immemorial, but general errors that do actually cause confusion.
Incorrect use of “I” and “me”
I am putting this one first as it is the most irritating of all, and is down to people correcting others, mainly children, but not educating them properly. An example of the usage is a phrase such as “show John and I your book”. This error is so basic and so easy to fix, that is why it is annoying. It is caused, I think, from being corrected when we were children, and we used to say stuff like “me and John went to the park today”. Our elders would tell us that we shouldn’t say “me and John” but we should say “John and I”. This is, of course, correct, for that particular sentence. In the earlier sentence, however, using “me and John” would be correct, i.e. “show me and John your book”, or, indeed, “show John and me” your book.
The reasoning behind this is very easy to demonstrate. Try the sentences without John in them. Whilst you would say “I went to the park today”, thus you would also say “John and I went to the park today”. But you wouldn’t say “show I your book”, so in the same way you wouldn’t say “show John and I your book”. You would say “show me your book, and therefore “show John and me your book”. The difference is that in the the first sentence John and I are the people doing the action, whereas in the second sentence, John and I are not. This situation applies whenever John and I are not doing the action in the sentence and, generally, when they are preceded by a preposition, e.g. “to” as in “they spoke to John and me about the damage we had caused” (but see more about this below).
“Than” and “Then”
This is the common confusion between the words “then” and “than”, and in fact is related to a general confusion between the letters ‘a’ and ‘e’ that seems to be occurring. Often you will see sentences such as “Anne is taller then Emma”. In this case, a comparison is being made, and the word “than” should be used, not “then”. I’m not sure where this comes from, but it could just be that some regional accents pronounce “than” and “then” in the same way, with the vowel as an indistinct unstressed “uh” sound. I’ve never done that and maybe that’s why it doesn’t pose me any problems. However, it seems to happen in other situations too. For example, I often see the word “women” used for the singular, e.g. “a women”. This one surely is easy to avoid, as it should be used in the same way as “man/men”. You wouldn’t say “a men” so why a “women”?
And this leads back to the use of “me” and “I”. As generally the word “me” is used following a preposition, then why do some people say “Anne is taller than I”, surely it should be “Anne is taller than me”? Well, it might appear that in this sentence I am not the subject, or the “doer”; or am I? In fact, in this sort of sentence BOTH persons can be seen as the subject, i.e. the doer, because sentence implies the word “am” at the end: “Anne is taller than I (am)”, so in this case use of the word ‘I’ is correct. An exception to this would be where I really was the object of the sentence, e.g. “Anne likes John more than me”, because in this case the implied but missing part of the sentence is “she likes”, i.e. “Anne likes John more than (she likes) me”, so in this case using “me” is correct.
Use of apostrophe
This one has to be mentioned as it is the single most common misuse of the language today, and is quite well-known I would say, even amongst those who continually get it wrong. We know, of course, that for possessives it should be used for nouns, but not for pronouns, e.g. “the cat’s tail” as opposed to “its tail”. And we should all know that the apostrophe is not used for plurals, e.g. “videos”, not “video’s” (there does seem to be a tendency for people to use them when the noun ends in a vowel or consists of initial letters, e.g. “CD’s”).
However, a new tendency that has come from this is the misuse of words ending in “-y”, both for plurals and in other situations such as verbs. For example “delivery’s” and “cry’s”, as in “the boy cry’s for his mummy”. Where were the school teachers who should have taught them that in these cases the “-y” is replaced with “-ie-”, so we should have “deliveries” and “cries”? I really wish I knew. I won’t even go into the misuse of words like “there/they’re/their” and “your/you’re”, but I must mention the sign at my office which states (something like) “Is you’re department having a celebration?” I keep meaning to correct it but I never have a marker pen handy when I visit that particular part of the office.
Other examples
Here are some short examples of other common errors. These are not as basic as the ones above, but I have decided I will mention them and I may add to this as I think of more.
1) “Different than”. This should be “different from”.
2) “Myriad of “. This word should be used in the same way as words like “many” or “various”, e.g. “the myriad lights reflecting on the sea”.
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?