Thursday, September 4, 2008

BAD ENGLISH USAGE

I hate it when people get it all wrong with the language, and don't even bother to know about it. Though their effort to speak up in a language which they're poor at should be appreciated, they should know better than to make a fool of themselves. But the part that annoys me the most is they never realize that they are making a fool out of themselves, since no one else apart from a few people can spot the bad grammar. And besides its stupid to point of every single mistake when they talk so rapidly. I am not just talking about a bunch of winy girls mumbling, 'like this, like this' and 'I only, you only' to each other. A lot of us have made a habit of incorrect sentence formation, and we tend to ignore many basic language rules. Here are a few examples mentioned on BBC website along others I recollect...

> "for free" is becoming commonplace and is used often on television and it's wrong. It should be "for nothing".

> There is no such thing as 12 am & 12 pm. 'AM' or "ante meridiem" means "before noon", ans 'PM' or "post meridiem" means "after noon". The correct way is to describe it as Midnight and Noon.

> If you do something to change a situation, then you "effect" a change. If your circumstances are changed by an action, then the change has caused an "effect". You cannot "affect" a change in something, nor can you be "effected" by one.

> This one is heard quite often. The plural of CD can't be CD's. Its CD itself.

> The improper use of "I' and 'me' is perhaps the most common written errors. "She said some very kind things about George and me" is a proper sentence, and not "She said some very kind things about George and I". An easy way to remember which to use is: if you would say him or her on its own, use 'me'; if you would say he or she on its own, use 'I'.

> Saying 'yourself' and 'myself' instead of 'you' and 'me', just for being overly polite is again bad grammar.

> There is no '-as to when-' phrase in English language. Never use that in a sentence.

> How about "none of them is" and "none of them are"? Most people would use the latter whereas the former is correct. "None" is short for "not one" therefore "not one (none) of them is" would be used.

> Its always 'different from' and NEVER 'different than' and 'different to'.

> "They opened fire on us" is again one of the most popular errors, and made by many among the military.


> Its always 'number of people' and not 'amount of people'. AMOUNT is used when the noun cannot be counted, such as 'amount of water' being used instead of 'number of gallons of water'. But 'amount of gallons of water' is incorrect.

> Single noun with a plural verb is again a pitiful error, for example: "the team are happy with their victory", or "management have congratulated the workforce on the recent increase in productivity". Team is a singular noun so it should read "the team IS happy..." or "the team members ARE happy", the same applies "management HAS congratulated..."

There are many more examples of incorrect usage. Try to be vary of such usage guys.