THE FIVE MOST COMMON GRAMMATICAL
ERRORS
Summary by Della Wilza
Noviska
Error grammatical
According to Burt and Kiparsky
(1974), grammatical error is an error which is not suitable to the grammatical
rules that may make writing become not good. while, according to Ellis
(1997) stated that grammar is
traditionally concerned with the principles which determined the formation and
interpretation of words, phrases and sentences. Therefore, the grammatical
errors is kind of important to be considered by the learners because it does
not match with the grammatical system of a language. The English learners have
to be able to understand what the grammatical rules of English and how to apply
them well, especially in writing. The grammatical errors found in students’
text writing sometimes will influence the meaning of the he text. Therefore,
learning the grammatical errors enables the students to produce a good writing.
The most basic rule for sentence
structure is that verbs should agree with their subject. Only the subject
affects the verb. The subject and the verb must match each other: if the
subject is singular, the verb is singular; and if the subject is plural, the
verb is plural.
For examples:
Don’t :boys is playing
sports Don’t : the group are eating the pie
Do : boys are playing
sports Do : the
group is eating the pie
The apostrophe has two purposes: It shows ownership (“Peter’s book was
published”), and it replaces missing letters (“you’re invited”). Leave it out,
and your reader will think that you are either careless or never learned these
rules.Mostly, we need to include the apostrophe when we are collapsing two
words.
For example : Lets”
is not a word.
What’s
missing here is the apostrophe. Without it, we can’t form the contraction for “let
us” “let’s.”
Rule:
Use an apostrophe when you are combining two words and leaving out one or more
letters.
The main problem with apostrophes is when to use them and
when not to use them. They’re generally used to either show possession or to
contract two words into one.
You should use an apostrophe when showing possession of a
specific person, but not when using possessive pronouns like his, hers, my,
mine or theirs.
As an example, “Her brothers car ran the red light,”
is incorrect. “Her brother’s car ran the red light,” is correct.
For contractions, you use an apostrophe to make one word
from two. The apostrophe’s job in this case is to take the place of the vowel
in the word you’re shortening. It’s used to create words like it’s from it
is, you’re from you are and they’re from they are.
Misplaced modifiers
A modifier is a phrase or word
meant to describe or explain part of a sentence. When
modifiers are used correctly, the meaning of the sentence is clear. When
modifiers are used incorrectly the meaning of the sentence can change
drastically. Using
modifiers correctly will improve the clarity of your work.
“A misplaced modifier is a word
or word group placed so far away from what it refers to (or modifies) that the
reader may be confused. Modifiers
should be placed as closely as possible to the words they modify in order to
keep the meaning clear” (Harris 120).
The
following are examples of incorrect modifiers and how to correct a misplaced
modifier:
Example : Loud singing annoys you quickly.
Here, it is clear that you are quickly
annoyed.
Example with misplaced modifier : Loud
singing quickly annoys me.
Here, it is unclear if quickly modifies
loud singing or if it modifies how fast you are annoyed.
Dangerous
malapropisms
A malapropism is the misuse of a word due to confusion with
another similar word. Many words sound similar, but mean very different things.
For example, indicted and inducted. When a person is indicted, he’s charged
with a crime, but when a person is inducted, he’s been given a new job or honor.
For
example : Don’t : congratulate
someone who’s been indicted
Do
: congratulate who’s been inducted
Don’t : mix up it’s and its, who’s and whose, their, there,
and they’re
It’s : a contraction for “ it is” and Its : possessive, ex.
Its handle is green
Who’s : a contraction for “ who is”and Whose : possessive,
ex. The man whose hair is red
Their : possessive, ex. Their dog is a Labrador
There : an adverb meaning “that location” ex. We’ll go there
There’re :
contraction for “they are”
Conclusion :
So, if you want to your English writing well, grammatical is
the power of that. You should fix your grammatical errors with avoid dangerous
malapropisms, Avoid misusing apostrophes, avoid misplaced modifiers and others.
Beside that, you should try more for using grammar, because with use right
grammar and grammatical, it will makes your writing well and then the readers will
be easily to understand what the mean you are.
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