COMMON GRAMMAR ERRORS
Common words are often misspelled by many people. Not only they misspell the common words but also get confused in similarly spelled words. Sometimes, people use wrong form of words like “there” and “their”. It doesn’t matter if such words are misspelled among our friends or family as we know that what they want to say.But if you made such mistake in case of business or formal setting then you should be ready to pay a hefty amount for that.If you make grammar errors then it will make you unprofessional and you will lose your customers or it can even throw you out of business. If you are looking for IELTS training in Dubai then we will recommend Rolla Academy Dubai to everyone.
Below are some common grammar mistakes that are made by various people:
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Subject/Verb Agreement: We need to match a plural noun with plural verb and vice versa. For example it is correct to write “The lady is sitting on the chair” and it is incorrect to write “The lady are sitting on the chair”. People also get confused with nouns like: “everyone” or “nobody”. These nouns are very much confusing as being singular these nouns refer to more than one person. It is correct to write or say, “Everyone has an important issue” or “Nobody wants to be wasted” while it is incorrect to write, “Nobody want to be wasted” or “Everyone have an important issue”.
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Past and present tenses mix-up: This is one of the most common error in content writing or fiction writing but it usually comes out once in a while in business correspondences.Usually product or service descriptions are written in present tense to portray a sense of immediacy or urgency. In such cases the error that occurs is the failure to maintain present tense. When you clearly state that you are talking about an event or something in the past then it is an exception. For example, “Even ten years ago, old folks weren’t able to get news in time”.
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Apostrophe errors: There are two reasons due to which apostrophes are used: one reason is to denote a letter that is deleted from contractions and another reason is for expressing possession. But now a days many people use apostrophe for expressing plural tense which is a common grammatical mistake. It is wrong to write “Only dog’s should eat dog-food” but instead we should write “Only dogs should eat dog-food”.
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Failure to put a proper ending on a past tense verb: We all are aware about the fact that majority of past tense verbs end with –ed: hated, loved, greeted etc.It is pretty easy to mess up at this and there are exceptions as well.Before presentation you must have someone to proofread your work or be sure to double-check your correspondence. It is incorrect if you write “He walk daily to that hotel”. Such type of errors are easy to catch and fix. You need to read these sentences carefully.
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Misusing commas:In a sentence commas are basically used for telling the readers that they need to take a break before proceeding further with the rest of the sentence. A common mistake that is made by most of the people is that using commas instead of periods. We should use semi-colon instead of a comma if the second part of the sentence stand on its own.
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Use of wrong form of “there”:People also get confused in using the words “there”, “their” and “they’re” as these words are almost similar in pronunciation. The word “there” should be used as a noun. The word “their” should be used as an indication of possession. The word “they’re” should be used as contraction for they are.
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Use of “then” and “than”:The word “than” is used for comparison whereas the word “then” is used for referring to something that will happen next or will take place.
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Confusion between the words “it’s” and “its”: This is one of the most common mistakes in blog writing or fictional writing.The word “its” does not follow the rules for possessives. The single quotes can only be used when contracting “it is”.We can write“With time everything lost its value”but not “With time everything lostit’s value”.
- Use of “lose” and “loose”: The informal writers usually get confused between the words “lose” and “loose”. The word “lose” is used to mean no longer have, fail to win or fail to find whereas the word “loose” is an adjective that means not fastened or not confined.
- Misplacing modifiers:If you want to make it clear that your ideas are understood by the people easily then you need to place a modifier before the word you want to modify. The modifier basicallypoints to a particular word in a sentence or phrase. You should not write “At seven years old, my mother gave me a toy for Eid”but you should write “When I was seven years old, my mother gave me a toy for Eid”.
- Fewer and less: When we refer to hypothetical quantities then we use word “less” whereas we use word “fewer” or “few” for referring to quantifiable things. You can use fewer in this manner“The company has fewer than fifteen employees“ whereas you can use less in this manner “The company is less successful this year round”.
- That and Which: The people easily get confused where to use the words “that” and “which”. We should note that the word “that” is a restrictive pronoun and very important to the noun to which it refers. If we take a look on the sentence “I don’t trust hardware and software that has no user manual” then in this sentence we are referring to all software and hardware. The word “which” is usually used for introducing a relative clause. In the sentence “We should always buy certified software and hardware which are available in certified stores” we can easily notice that we don’t need to go to a specific store for buying certified software and hardware.The word “that” restricts to a particular thing whereas the word “which” is quite ambiguous and can be used in various relative clauses.
For avoiding these common grammar mistakes first of all we should identify our weaknesses or you should start using our grammar checker for learning and improving. We should point out those areas in which we are having trouble and practice in those areas for mastering those skills.We should keep in mind that this will not happen in a single day but it will take some time with daily writing and talking in English. You should not become lazy, keep practicing and never ignore little things as they matter a lot. Remember practice makes a man perfect.
