Do you type \u201cbuy\u201d when you meant to type \u201cbye\u201d? That\u2019s awkward, to say the least.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a shame to damage an otherwise excellent blog post with mistakes in grammar and language use. The good thing is that when you write blog posts you probably tend to make the same mistakes over and over again, so it\u2019s easy to identify your weak spots and learn to correct mistakes before you make them.<\/p>\n
Below are some common language use mistakes we all make. How many are you guilty of?<\/p>\n
A or An?<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s 1st grade stuff, really: you use \u201ca\u201d with words starting with a consonant and \u201can\u201d with words starting with a vowel. Right? If only things were that straightforward!<\/p>\n \u201cA\u201d is also used with words starting with a consonant if, when spelled out, the first letter would begin with a vowel.<\/p>\n Think how \u201cn\u201d and \u201cm\u201d are pronounced, and how you would write them out. They start with a vowel: you would write [en] and [em].<\/p>\n This means that you say, \u201cHe is an NBA player\u201d and not \u201cHe is a NBA player\u201d.<\/p>\n Another example of this is the phrase, \u201cThere\u2019s a U-turn coming up in 100 metres.\u201d Here, the letter \u201cu\u201d is pronounced \u201cYou.\u201d Even though the letter is a vowel, you need to use \u201can\u201d because it is spelled out as if it begins with a consonant [yoo].<\/p>\n Homophone Wars<\/span><\/p>\n The carnage is dreadful. No matter how careful you are you will at some point end up confusing words like \u201cjean\u201d and \u201cgene\u201d or typing \u201cpassed\u201d when you meant to type \u201cpast.\u201d<\/p>\n Yes, the English language is full of mine fields, but familiarizing yourself with common homophone blunders you ensure you will avoid them in your writing (plus you\u2019ll get to scold others who are still making them).<\/p>\n Common homophone mix-ups include these word pairs:<\/p>\n patience \u2013 patients<\/p>\n vale \u2013 veil<\/p>\n hear \u2013 here<\/p>\n your \u2013 you\u2019re<\/p>\n night \u2013 knight<\/p>\n dear \u2013 deer<\/p>\n one – won<\/p>\n there – their \u2013 they\u2019re<\/p>\n none – nun<\/p>\n The Fewer or Less predicament<\/strong><\/p>\n This is not really a predicament if you know a simple rule. \u201cFewer\u201d is used with countable nouns, as in \u201cfewer lessons\u201d and \u201cfewer flowers.\u201d For uncountable nouns use \u201cless\u201d – say \u201cless money\u201d or \u201cless time.\u201d<\/p>\n Note however that you will use \u201cless\u201d and not \u201cfewer\u201d when reporting on a measurement, as the Oxford Dictionary says. Example: \u201cThey got divorced in less than 3 years after getting married.\u201d<\/p>\n Dangling modifiers<\/strong><\/p>\n Think of a dangling modifier as a word without a root. It\u2019s a word, phrase, or clause in a sentence, where it is not clear which other phrase or word in a sentence it is connected to. The noun can either be very far from the modifier or not present in the sentence at all. Consider the following sentence:<\/p>\n \u201cReading your complaint letter, my dog will not go outdoors unattended again.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n This sentence omits \u00a0the noun altogether. For clarity, it should read:<\/p>\n \u201cReading your complain letter, I will not let my dog outdoors unattended again.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n This restores peace in your neighborhood and reassures your neighbor your dog doesn\u2019t have a reading superpower. But if you learn to avoid these common mistakes, you’ll definitely be a super writer!<\/p>\n Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you type \u201cbuy\u201d when you meant to type \u201cbye\u201d? That\u2019s awkward, to say the least. It\u2019s a shame to damage an otherwise excellent blog post with mistakes in grammar and language use. The good…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vocabulary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreeder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreeder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreeder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreeder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreeder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreeder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreeder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreeder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreeder.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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