You may not be getting back into the classroom full time, but you can still brush up on some basic writing skills. Let’s get schooled on 10 common grammar mistakes that are hurting your ability to communicate clearly in your writing.
- Incomplete comparisons. This occurs when one of the items being compared is missing, causing the reader to lose a crucial piece of information as they try to understand what you hope to portray. For example, “I’m faster.” Faster than what or who? This sentence isn’t making a full comparison without more context.
- Who versus that. Use “who” when referring to people and “that” when referencing inanimate objects, groups of people, places, things and animals without a name. Companies, organizations and governments also fall in the category that takes “that” as its relative pronoun.
Examples: “They are someone who is always excited for back-to-school season,” and “She is part of the team that won first place in the competition.” - Misplaced modifiers. Modifiers are words or phrases that describe other words or phrases. When they end up in the wrong spot in a sentence, it can cause confusion and change the meaning being conveyed. This common mistake can be fixed by rearranging a sentence so the modifier is next to the word or phrase it is modifying.
A famous joke from Groucho Marx plays on the ambiguity caused by a misplaced modifier. It says, “While hunting in Africa, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How an elephant got in my pajamas I’ll never know.” Since “in my pajamas” is at the end of the first sentence, the subject of the phrase can be misread as “elephant” instead of “I.” One way to fix this confusion is to change the sentence to “While hunting in my pajamas in Africa, I shot an elephant” since this moves the modifier closer to the correct subject.
- Subject-verb agreement. In a sentence, the subject and verb should match in number, person and gender. Most subject-verb agreements in English are about quantity. This means singular subjects take singular verbs, and plural subjects are paired with plural verbs. It can often be unclear if a subject is singular or plural, such as mathematics, and which verb form is singular or plural since not all verbs are formed the same way.
An example of a sentence lacking subject-verb agreement: "One of my friends like to eat out at lunch instead of packing her food." When corrected, it would read: "One of my friends likes to eat out at lunch instead of packing her food." - i.e. versus e.g. These Latin abbreviations are often confused but have different meanings and uses. Short for id est, i.e. means “that is” and is used before a word or phrase that restates previously introduced information. It is also used to define a term or idea that readers might be unfamiliar with. Alternatively, e.g. stands for exempli gratia and means “for example.” It is used to introduced one or more examples.
- Into versus in to and onto versus on to. “Into” and “onto” are prepositions, a type of word that shows relationships between other words in a sentence. They often indicate time, direction, location, movement and spatial relationships. “Into” can show something is inside another object, while “onto” means something is on top of something else.
On the other hand, “in to” and “on to” serve other purposes in a sentence but can be confusing when they end up next to each other. If they aren’t showing any of the relationships listed above, then avoid the urge to make them one word.
Examples: “I placed the letter into the envelope,” and “Please log in to the website by entering your information.” “My cat climbed onto the roof,” and “The computer must be turned on to work.” - Farther versus further. It is generally accepted that “farther” refers to a physical distance, while “further” means a greater figurative distance, although this can depend on if they are functioning as adverbs, adjectives or verbs. Learn more on the origins of these commonly confused words and their slightly different uses from Merriam-Webster.
- May versus might. While these words may seem interchangeable, they have slightly different meanings. “May” is typically used in the present tense to indicate a likely situation or to give or ask for permission. “Might” is more often used in the past tense to describe an unlikely hypothetical or a situation that did not happen.
- Faulty parallelism. Sentences with similar or parallel structures are easier to understand and more effective. Lack of parallelism occurs when verb tenses, nouns and verbs, noun numbers, or subjects are mixed in a sentence.
For example, “I like to read and go swimming” lacks a parallel structure and would be better written as “I like to read and swim.” “I like to read and to swim” would also be acceptable. - Em dashes versus en dashes versus hyphens. Although they are all types of dashes, em dashes, en dashes and hyphens vary slightly in length and have different uses.
Em dashes (—) can signal an abrupt change or break, offset information, or show attribution of a quoted passage. They are often used with or without a space on each side of the dash depending on style preference.
En dashes (–) are primarily used in ranges of numbers, dates, times and scores as well as in complex compound modifiers. An interesting note here is that AP style doesn’t use en dashes, favoring hyphens for these uses.
Hyphens (-) are the most common dash and are the joiners of the grammar world. They are often used to avoid ambiguity and make meanings clearer for readers when multiple words are being used to express a single idea.
To learn more about common punctuation errors and their potential cost, check out our blog on brand-busting punctuation pitfalls.