Common Grammar Errors in English

Doesn't, does not, or does are used with the third person singular - words like he, she, and it.

3. Bring vs Take

When you are viewing the movement of something from the point of arrival, use “bring”:

When you are viewing the movement of something from the point of departure, use “take”:

4. Fewer vs Less

You can count the items, so you need to use the number word “fewer”. These nouns are countable.

If you can’t count the substance, then you should use “less”. These nouns are uncountable.

5. However

"We were supposed to go to the dance last night, however, it was cancelled because of lack of interest."

A semicolon, rather than a comma, should be used to link these two complete sentences:

* "We were supposed to go to the dance last night; however, it was cancelled because of lack of interest."

It should be noted that there ARE situations in which you can use a comma instead of a semi-colon:

There is only one complete sentence in this example. It is not a compound sentence.

6. Have vs Of

7. Double negative

8. Present perfect

9. Went vs Gone

10. Its vs It's

Do you have a pet peeve? Email me with the grammar mistake that annoys you the most, and I will add it to the list: teacherkarenb @ hotmail.com.

My pet peeve is shown in my email signature. Many people believe it is more sophisticated to use "myself" in place of me. Is it sophisticated to be wrong? I don't think so.

"Myself" is no better than "I" as an object. "Myself" is not a sort of all-purpose intensive form of "me" or "I." Use "myself" only when you have used "I" earlier in the same sentence: "I am not particularly fond of goat cheese myself." "I kept half the loot for myself." All this confusion can easily be avoided if you just remove the second party from the sentences where you feel tempted to use "myself" as an object or feel nervous about "me." You wouldn't say, "The IRS sent the refund check to I," so you shouldn't say "The IRS sent the refund check to my wife and I" either. And you shouldn't say "to my wife and myself." The only correct way to say this is, "The IRS sent the refund check to my wife and me." Still sounds too casual? Get over it. from:http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/myself.html

The use of “there’s” in place of “there’re” is rampant. I hear well-educated people say, “There’s two reasons …” and “There’s some children at the door” and “There’s sandwiches on the table.” (I also hear poorly educated people say, “It’s some children at the door” and “It’s sandwiches on the table.”).

I was looking at grammar this morning and hit your website. I was researching instances when people say, "He did real good." This is most annoying when it is used by my son's teacher!

I hear people saying things similar to "I am so not doing x, y or z." My friend was looking for an internal medicine specialist last year. When I visited my doctor at that time, I inquired whether she might be taking new patients. Her response was "I am so not taking any new patients." Why do people use the word "so" to emphasize the word "not" ? Why not simply say, "I am not taking new patients," or "I am not taking any new patients," for a little emphasis?

Of course, every error I find makes me cringe, but the most egregious error that I have noticed occurs mostly in advertising. So often a company claims its product to be some number of times better, stronger, faster, etc. than another product. In reality, the product is some number of times as good, strong, fast, etc. as the other product. For example, "This product makes your tooth enamel two times stronger." Really? In that case, how much is one time stronger? It should be "twice as strong."

Even worse is when a company claims a product is a number of times less, smaller, slower, etc. than another. For example, Comcast claimed in one of its television ads that DSL was "up to four times slower" than Comcast internet service. That is an impossible claim: One time slower is completely stopped; four times slower is three times the speed IN REVERSE. Sadly it's false advertising few people even notice.

1. Woman/women used as an adjective rather than "female". This seems to have become standard usage. No one would think of saying "man lawyer" or "men doctors". Why is it acceptable to say "women lawyers?"

2. "Waiting on" rather than "waiting for".

Without a doubt, it would have to be the random apostrophe – in fact I’m thinking of starting a “Save the Apostrophe” group because it is in danger of dying out altogether because of mass prostitution of usage. How about “Tomato’s For Sale” or “Pizza’s Half-Price”, “50% of on all dress’s.” I can sympathise with those who say “I saw it’s face”, because they are actually applying a correct rule and not realising that this is one of English’s millions of exceptions to The Rule. But you’d think that people who spend thousands on billboards and glossy magazines would get it right!!! I usually scrub out an incorrect apostrophe if it is written in chalk on a blackboard, but it is harder (and probably illegal) to do anything to an official sign. Why is this rule so hard to grasp????

It drives me nuts when people (usually newscasters) use the phrase "begs the question" to mean "prompts the question" or "leads to the question." To beg the question is a logical fallacy which entails presupposing the intended conclusion in the argument presented. In other words, to beg the question is to make a circular argument.

I find it so frustrating to hear people use the adjective "real" (meaning true, genuine etc) instead of the adverb "really" (to show the degree of the adjective). For example: "That person over there is real good-looking". It makes my skin crawl!

I often hear a radio announcer say something like this, "... and Johnny Bench, he hit a triple..."

Is that only a grammar mistake or merely a speaking "helper" so as to not say "Um?"

As a Brit who emigrated to the USA fairly recently, I have had to endure a lot of "American English", which comes with its own brand of grammatical errors, many of which have already been covered on this site. However, just a few minutes ago I heard yet another example of one of my pet peeves on the television and couldn't resist posting this comment!

The point is this: in the USA there is an overwhelming tendency to treat collective nouns as singular entities, rather than plural (as in the UK) - for example, "The audience is clapping" vs "The audience are clapping". In itself, I don't have a problem with this, since I think both ways are OK. Another example: "My team is doing well" vs "My team are doing well". Again, on their own, both statements seem fine. What annoys me, makes me gnash my teeth, curl my toes, etc., is when I hear something like "My team HAS scored THEIR first point", or "The government HAS passed THEIR new law". If I feel like being facetious, I want to answer with "Has they?". SURELY, YOU CANNOT MIX SINGULAR AND PLURAL FORMS LIKE THIS? (The one I just heard on TV was "Now, the next
generation tries THEIR luck at singing...").

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say:

"My team HAS scored ITS first point"
"The government HAS passed ITS new law"
"The next generation tries ITS luck at singing" ?

Or, alternatively, and more like what one would encounter in the UK:

"My team HAVE scored THEIR first point"
"The government HAVE passed THEIR new law"
"The next generation TRY their luck at singing" ?

If you're going to refer to a group (usually of people) with the pronoun "they", or possessive pronoun "their", then use the plural form of the verb in the same sentence. If you prefer to use singular pronouns, then that's OK too - so long as you use the singular form of the verb! That's what I does! :-)

I'm in high school and, often times, a teacher will ask a student about how the student thinks he did on the test or quiz. The student will then say,
"I think I did good." Or how about this common conversation: "Hi, how are you doing?" "I'm doing good." Yuck! Those sentences sound like nails on a chalkboard to me. Good is an adjective, not an adverb, so to modify how you did, you would have to use the adverb well. So it should be "I think I did well," or "I'm doing well." If I'm 16 and I know that, I think everyone else should too!

My boyfriend drives me crazy with his horrible grammar. He consistently uses "seen" instead of "saw," and "don't" instead of "doesn't." The latter is already on your list, but I would love it if you would add "seen versus saw"!

Many of the pet peeves already listed have driven me crazy. A lot of them must have something to do with living in the Midwest because I have never been around an entire society that insisted on talking incorrectly (even in the newspapers!).

One of my pet peeves is when people use "irregardless" instead of "regardless." It's redundant to say "IR-regardless". Now my husband uses it just to irritate me.

Since moving to the Midwest, I’ve noticed that people here say acrossed instead of across. For example, “I went acrossed the river for lunch today.” I cringe every time I hear it.

My biggest pet peeve is the excessive wordiness of the phrase "to be doing/needing". For instance, "We will be doing that tomorrow"; AND

"This year we will be moving to a new room and we will be needing many new items as well." (This was written by a pre-school teacher with an elementary education degree!

Isn't the correct grammar like this?: "This year we will move to a new room and we will need many new items as well"?

My pet peeve is something I’ve noticed recently, and it might only be in the Midwest (or Ohio), but it’s rather irritating:

The car needs washed.

The package needs shipped.

Have people simply grown too lazy to insert “to be?”

What annoys me the most about grammar mistakes is that I still make them myself! However, my most 'hated' pet peeve is when some people use 'Your' instead of 'You're'. For example:

    Your not listening to me. [BAD]
    vs.
    You're not listening to me. [GOOD]

Of course, there is also the ever-popular 'Their', 'They're' and 'There'. For example:

    Their over there unpacking they're stuff! [BAD]
    vs.
    They're over there, unpacking their stuff! [GOOD]

I aspire to being an English teacher one day so that I can help correct these common mistakes so that other people may have a better future. I have found a site that helps me learn, and it helps my grammar-less friends to realize their mistakes, too! It's called "BrainPOP" and they have a website. It's brainpop.com and they have many videos on the English language.

I hate it when people don't use the subjunctive in phrases such as "It is necessary that he is looked after" instead of "he BE looked after".

I constantly hear on news reports "Scenes like this one" instead of "Scenes like THESE".

It sounds so tatty to end a sentence with a preposition; as Churchill said: "This is a kind of English up with which I shall not put". A layman would just say: "which I shan't put up with".

A common but usually unknown error is using the word 'none' with a plural conjugation. "none of these are any good" is incorrect -- 'none' is short for 'not one', so should be treated as a singular noun, so "none of these IS any good" is correct.

The most annoying grammar mistake? For me, it's "between you and I." This is a classic case of hypercorrection, and it drives me crazy.

When I first came to this country in 1973, I stayed with my sister-in-law, a native speaker with multiple graduate degrees, born and raised in this country. In my first week, when I heard her use the expression 'lay down' for 'lie down,' I tried to point out to her that technically that was incorrect. But then I soon realized that the so-called 'incorrect expression' has actually permeated the American Language. That's how language changes. As we know, all languages are in the state of constant flux. I was in Australia for over 8 years. There speakers don't say 'lay down' for 'lie down' but their version of English is undergoing a different kind of change. They--and this includes those who are supposed to uphold the standards--would say 'hotting up' for 'heating up.' These gradual changes within two dialects of English into different directions eventually give rise to two different languages. It seems to me that more pervasive 'errors' in language use simply reflect the potential language changes to come.

“lay” and “lie” - This blunder has been driving me insane for twenty years. I've been known to shout at the television when a newscaster informs me that an accident victim was "laying" in the street.

Irresponsible apostrophe use - I actually saw this one at a preschool. One of the teachers had made a poster listing the children's "birthday's"!

"into" and "in to" - This one always makes me laugh. "This form must be turned into Susan no later than Friday." Wow, I'd really like to see that happen.

"with" and "with pronoun-of-your-choice" - During the last year or so, I've noted the increasing prevalence of such silly statements as, "John's going to the store, and I'm going with." This asininity drives me up the wall, across the ceiling, and out the window. Would it really require too much effort to say "with him"?

I came upon your site looking for confirmation that the construction "If you would have done something, then I would have done something" is wrong (and should be "If you had done something, then I would have done something". It seems that EVERYONE does it wrong. Everyone also does the lie versus lay thing wrong (especially in hospitals and doctors' offices, where they use it many times a day -- you'd think they could learn it right!); and there's the ubiquitous "with Sue and I" mistake, made by most educated people. ARRGGHHH!

My biggest peeve, however, is the signs in stores that advertise things for less than one cent when they are meant to sell for less than one dollar (such as ".49 [cents symbol]" per pound for bananas, when the intent is either $.49 or 49 cents). I've gotten into arguments about this many times with the merchants who insist that their sign is correct.

TV newspeople, as well as commercials, are guilty of substituting "less" for "fewer" all the time. I just don't see how young people will ever get it straight if they are surrounded by constant mis-use. Is anyone old enough to remember, " Winston tastes good 'like' a cigarette should?" At least there was an uproar over it, which called it to our attention and made us aware it was incorrect, even though its use continued!

And......what about the fact that "it's" is mistakenly used for "its" in packaging, publishing, signage....all over the place!! For that mistake, there is no excuse!! I recently ordered some materials and circled the mistake on the order blank, not that anyone noticed.

“of” instead of “have” - I shudder when I hear “I should of called home”. Where did anyone get the idea that “of” was a verb or that it was permanently affixed to the end of the word “should”? Why can’t they say “I should HAVE called home”?

“lay” and “lie” - I gnash my teeth when I hear “I will lay down for a nap” (as opposed to “I lay down for an hour early this morning”).

Irresponsible apostrophe use - I go totally crazy when I see plurals formed with apostrophes (apostrophe’s?). That used to be considered an error. Now it’s completely commonplace, even in advertising and signage.

"fewer" and "less" - I feel like taking a magic marker, driving around to all the grocery stores, and changing “8 items or less” to “8 items or fewer” at the express counters. But nobody would understand my fervour and I would be arrested, so I guess I just have to grin and bear it (or never go through the express counter).

Isn’t the improper use of the reflexive pronoun one of the most rampant errors today? People who say “I am fine … and yourself?” or People who say “Please email the information to myself?”, etc.

Subjunctive mood! The worst! People never use it. Instead, you have people saying "If I was in a different situation, ..." Subjunctive mood should always be used for future, if's, and wishes.

My pet peeve is when people write "Your" when they should have written "You're".

The phrase that most bothers me is: "I could care less". I wish this expression could be wiped off the face of the earth. People sound so illiterate when they say this.

1. Third conditional

2. Don't vs Doesn’t

3. Bring vs Take

4. Fewer vs Less

5. However

6. Have vs Of

7. Double negative

8. Present perfect

9. Went vs Gone

10. Its vs It's