TOP 10 English Grammar Mistakes
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TOP 10 English grammar mistakes
English has become a major necessity in the recent decades with the spread of internet. These days everyone needs to read and write English in order to get the information from the internet and to communicate with rest of the world.
Due to such wide spread use of English, it has become common practice to neglect the English grammar. Certain mistakes are so repetitive that most of the people do not even consider them to be mistakes. We will review top 10 English grammar mistakes that are common these days.
1- Which and that: One of the most common English mistakes is use of ‘which’ and ‘that’. ‘Which’ is used for animals and things. It should never be used for person. ‘That’ on the other hand, can be used for things as well as persons.
2- Anyone and Any one:
‘Any one’ means a single person whereas ‘anyone’ as one word refers to ‘any person’ and not a single person in particular.
3- Spellings:
Apart from these two mistakes, people also spell some words incorrectly. This would also make to top 10 English Grammar mistakes due to the number of people spelling these words incorrectly. Common misspellings include words like ‘all right’, ‘dependable’, separate’ and ‘recommend’.
4- Punctuation mistakes:
Punctuation mistakes are very common. People just do not give them enough importance. Semicolons and commas are mostly used incorrectly. If you look around on the web, you will see these two punctuations rarely used correctly.
5- Singulars and Plurals:
Most people would hardly realize that words like ‘software’ are both singular as well as plural. Web is full of these mistakes. People would generally use ‘softwares’ as plural of ‘software’. This again is a common enough mistake to make to top 10 English grammar mistakes presently.
6-Use of quotes:
People often do not know how to use quotes. You would often see people using quotes after a colon whereas they should be used after the colon. Similarly, the quotes should be used after period. People commonly use them before the period.
7- Use of ‘their’ and ‘there’:
This is another common mistakes that is made by many writers especially bloggers.
8-Wrong use of words such as ‘powerful’ to describe software:
You would often see software being described as ‘X is a very powerful software’. This is not correct use of powerful. It refers to powerful as in muscular. It has some other uses as well; however, none of them would permit using it for describing software as a ‘powerful software’.
9- Use of ‘sight’ and ‘site’:
This again is a common enough mistake to be included in top 10 English grammar mistakes. ‘Site’ is used for location; whereas ‘sight’ refers to ‘vision’. People often use it for website, which is incorrect use.
10- It’s and Its:
One of the most common English grammar mistakes on the web is use of ‘its’ and “it’s”.
If you are writing English, then you should make a note of these top ten English grammar mistakes and should avoid them at all costs.
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You are welcome :)
These are also some of my biggest pet peeves; however, I cannot say I'm completely innocent. In very casual settings, such as chats with familiar friends, I've been known to skip out on the occasional comma, let poor syntax slide, or become lax in my typing accuracy in general. Still, when writing pieces to share with the general public, I believe people should be more careful.
In defense of those who are not, many adults, even those who make a genuine effort, have not been educated in the correct usage of the nuances of language and punctuation. Particularly absent from the average education is precise use of the comma. It is not easily explained and poorly understood.
Additionally, the technicalities of usage differ from style to style, so what appears to be a poorly constructed list (a cat, a dog and a mouse) to one school of thought, is simply an alternate to the "old" correct method (a cat, a dog, and a mouse) if you follow one style manual over another. (The latter, incidentally, makes more sense to me, as the former allows for more misinterpretation.)
Poetic/creative license is an important exception to many of the more stringent grammar rules. I'm a firm believer in knowing how to use language correctly in order to break the rules intentionally enough that a creative purpose is actually served.
I did not mean to ramble, but this has been on my mind lately. Thanks for sharing. By the way, I like your illustration.
@Alayne Fenasc thanks for sharing your thoughts, I appreciate that :)
I like grammar, so I found this hub interesting.
Alayne what you said reminded me of this poem in my English Literature class, it was actually a poem and the title if my memory serves me right, is "More Strong than time", grammatically it's wrong because instead of more strong it should be "stronger", but then according to our English prof. the writer did that intendedly to show the impact of emotion...in a poetic view it is considered correct... Me too loves grammar and want to review time and again... there are mistakes I've committed specially when I am typing too fast....and didn't recheck..
Good hub, another common mistake are the uses of 'to' and 'too'. It seems the word 'to' is frequently used online when referring to having 'too much of something'. Of course the latter 'too' is correct to describe an excess of something, but this is often unknown by online writers whose work I have read.
Number 6 says, "You would often see people using quotes after a colon whereas they should be used after the colon."
Explain, please.
interesting
I don't think it's incorrect to describe software as powerful. Power is far more versatile than muscular and is often used to describe something's effectiveness. It could be more precise, perhaps, and certainly isn't particularly descriptive, but there's nothing technically wrong with it. My biggest complaint would be that it's becoming a cliche. Every piece of software is powerful, just as every technological advance is groundbreaking and every piece of literature visionary.
Maria Cecilia Level 4 Commenter 16 months ago
Thanks this is a good reminder too..