We’ve been talking a lot about grammar over the past several classes. We’ve mostly focused on how to do it correctly, and why. But the bad examples are feeling left out, so it is up to you to share some with us.
So, post a comment here and share an example of poor grammar (keep the author of it anonymous). At the same time, share what is wrong with the example (such as missing comma or misplaced modifier).
I’ll start of with an example from a previous student paper:
“I ran through the hoardes of people looking for my mom.”
This misspells hordes, and has a misplaced modifier. As it stands, this person is running through a crowd who happen to be looking for the author’s mom.
Well, a good example of a common blunder is the following. We went to the store and bought a bunch of fruit and vegitables and went to a movie after. It is very common for people to take a many ideas and combine them with the overused word “and”. I think that this could best be fixed here as follows. We went to the store to buy fruits and vegitables then went to a movie.
Good example, and good changes.
Just a couple suggestions.
1. It is spelled “vegetables”
2. The main problem in the original is that it is a run-on. This one is also a run on. Normally, I would put a comma after “vegetables” and insert “and” before “then”.
We went to the store to buy fruits and vegetables, and then we went to a movie.
“I just gots to go to the store.”
Gots is not a word. To make the sentence correct “gots” would need to be replaced with “have”.
Here is an example of misusing a homonym: Are you going on they’re boat? Here they’re is wrong. It should be their. They’re means they are and their shows possesion. Written correctly the sentence should read: Are you going on their boat?
I struggle a lot with the differences between “affect” and “effect”. And words that are like that. I’m glad we went over a few in class.
Yes, homonyms are usually problems for lots of people – especially since grammar checkers rarely spot them.
So, do you have any examples of bad grammar to share?
My brother writes songs and has an o.k. following in Provo. He once wrote a song titled “You and Me”. Everybody let him know that it was bad grammar to say that. He ended up changing some of the words in his song to say, “and I know that it’s bad grammar…” To this day he doesn’t like to sing that song when it was requested because of the grammar incident.
I goes home to ate.
This a bad sentence because the tenses are not right. The correct way would be I went home to eat.
People often use the word “good” when they should be using “well”. If someone asks how you are doing and you say “I’m doing good,” you are saying that you are doing good things. You should be saying you are doing well. When asked, “how are you?”, it would then be appropriate to say, “I’m good”. I see this occasionally in people’s writing, but hear it all the time.
A bad example of bad grammar is “I went the store to get some fruit at the store.” or “I like to eat fish because seafood is good and i like to eat it often and its never enough so I want to go to Red lobster
I just have to say that I believe there is some correlation between the black hip hop influence on our society. Large majority of these examples sound like 50 cent and snoop dog.
Its not to big of a deal, but sometimes annoucements omit certain verbs…
For example:
Police 911
For information (555) 555-5555
Johns Pizza 555-5555
IMO, I think that it an important peice of information is left out. What am I supposed to do here? I’ve never learned how to “555-5555″. Of course its implied that the following set of numbers is a contact telephone, because we are familar with that notation.
We are currently going over this same topic, writing with proper grammar, in my Criminal Investigations class. Here is an example of a homonym from class.
“He called for a toe truck” = ” He called for a tow truck”
One of my favorite statements from my friends in Kentucky is: “I can’t make no promises.” By using a double negative, they imply that not only can they make promises, but that it is necessary for them to do so. Unfortunately, the use of the word “any” in the sentence (I can’t make any promises.) would be more indicative of their behavior.
I ain’t got a good example of bad grammer. My english is purfect. Thank you.