With the broad scope of English, it’s easy to get grammatically lost and not even notice it.
Despite one’s education, committing grammatical errors still happens especially when you rely on whatever sounds right to your ears.
Even the ones that sound right in our head will not make sense when written down.
It’s easy to miss these common grammar mistakes but not a good practice to maintain.
Developing good grammar not only improves your English skills, but it also increases your credibility; whether you’re in a professional environment or a workplace, English being the universal language is a requirement to maintain good communication.
Getting rid of the common grammar mistakes is the first step to not only save yourself from embarrassment but more importantly, maintain good communication.
Your vs. You’re
A pretty basic one but still gets messed up.
“Your” is possessive or owning something while “you’re” is a contraction of you are.
If you can see the difference, “your” is about possession while “you’re” is being something.
I found this pen under the table, is this yours?
You nailed the panel interview, you’re awesome!
They’re, Their, and There
It’s easy to miss the error in using these terms, especially when you’re not too conscious when to use these terms.
“They’re” is possessive, which is a contraction for “they are”; “their” refers to people or things mentioned, while “there” refers to a place.
Here’s how you can correctly use it in constructing your sentence.
They’re hesitant to do the task for the kids.
I learned their way of tending poultry animals.
Shannon definitely loves going there.
“Its” from “It’s”
Even the best writers still get confused in using these pronouns.
“Its” refers to possession while “it is” is the contraction of “it is” or “it has”.
Here are examples to understand it more.
This place is so cozy, it’s the best one in town.
This aquarium cleans on its own.
Incomplete comparisons
Pointing out incomplete comparisons is vital in explaining the degree of importance of thought or thing.
It helps your audience understand more your context; in which one indicates a stronger description than the other idea it is compared to.
See the example below in completing comparisons.
Before: The red team played better.
After: The red team played better than the black team.
Passive Voice
Writing in passive voice is a common dilemma for writers.
The variety on your sentence might give flavor to your content, but you’re likely to write in a passive tone.
Passive voice tends to express more words when it could’ve been written in a shorter sentence.
Unlike an active voice, it makes your sentence construction clearer and concise.
Active voice also drives engaging content and helps prevent common grammar mistakes.
Let’s see from the examples below on how to identify a passive voice from an active voice.
Passive: A slumber party will be organized today by Millie.
Active: Millie is organizing a slumber party today.
Dangling Modifiers
Perhaps most writers came across about dangling modifiers but never really understood that they have committed this error it several times.
And that’s fine, we are all guilty of committing one.
Just in case you forgot what a dangling modifier is—it’s a word or a phrase that modifies a word not clearly expressed in a sentence.
The word ‘modifier’ itself functions as mentioned: it alters, limits, or changes the detail more to the following sentence.
Take a look at the example below and how we fixed that:
Before: After hiding for years, Chris finally turned himself to the police.
After: Chris finally turned himself to the police after hiding for years
Using ‘they’ to refer a brand or entity
Take note that the term business or any entity is not plural so we refer to it as “it” instead of 'they'.
You might’ve gotten this wrongs and not notice it.
Normally, we identify an entity as they instead of ‘he’ or ‘she’, so that only sounds right in our head but not accurate.
Take a look at the examples below:
Incorrect: The former company moved all of their stuff to a bigger place.
Correct: The former company moved all of its stuff to a bigger place.
Usage of Possessive Nouns
A possessive noun is a noun that possesses something.
It is formed by adding an apostrophe +s to the noun but may vary in most cases.
We might think this one’s easy but there are basic rules to follow that sometimes confuses us:
Add apostrophe after the s if the noun is plural. For example: The cats’ collars.
Add apostrophe after the s if the noun is singular and ends with s. For example: The bass’ sleek design.
Add apostrophe before the s if the noun is singular and doesn’t end in s. For example: All of the dogs’ food was delivered today. Do not use an apostrophe then s to make a singular noun plural. For example:
Incorrect: Celeste bought her new lens’s today
Correct: Celeste bought her new lenses today.
Using affect and effect
Both terms are commonly misused especially when describing something that created an impact on the person differently.
Keep in mind that affect is almost always used as a verb as a means to influence or change something; "effect" on the other hand, is used most often as a noun which is the result of an influence.
Take a look at the examples below on how both terms are used:
The theatre play affected me deeply.
The theatre play had a deep effect on me.
When to use me and I
This can get confusing especially if both pronouns sound fine to you.
To recall our English lessons you had way back, ‘I’ is the subject pronoun used for the one doing the verb while ‘me’ is the object pronoun used as the object or receiver of the action of the verb.
To make it easier for you to decide which to use in a sentence, take out the other person, and its sentence should be clearer.
Most likely you will not be tempted to say “Me went to the mall yesterday”, instead “I went to the mall yesterday” from the context taken from this sentence: Priscilla and I went to the mall yesterday.
The importance of English grammar helps one to communicate and know the language comprehensively.
And communication is the key to succeed in your field, whether its studies, landing a job, or communicating with a family member, otherwise one cannot understandably use language.