Explanation
Many people experience problems with grammar so we have compiled what we believe
to be the most common grammatical errors. We searched the Internet, books, and
talked to a variety of well-educated people in an effort to find the most common
errors to include on this site. First we have decided to define exactly what we
mean by problems in grammar. A problem in grammar is considered to be the
failure to follow the rules prescribed for any given piece of writing. Most
problems are more prevalent in written work rather than spoken grammar.
Therefore most of our chosen topics deal with written elements of grammar. We have found the most common errors to be:
The
most common problems with Comma usage involve not knowing a subject from a
predicate and not being aware of independent verse dependent clauses. The
subject of a sentence names who or what the sentence is about. Predicate is the
grammatical term given to the verb plus its objects, complements, and adverbial
modifiers. (Hacker 745)
An independent clause
contains a subject and verb plus any objects, complements, and modifiers of
that verb, and it either stands alone or could stand alone. (Hacker 769)
A comma should be used
before coordinating conjunctions that join independent clauses.
Many
people today also have problems with subject-verb agreement. One major thing to
remember is that when the subject is plural the verb must also be plural. This
is also the rule for singular subjects; they must also have a singular verb.
Another
thing that causes confusion in grammar is what we call a modifier. A modifier is
a word, phrase, or sentence element that limits or qualifies the sense of
another word, phrase, or element in the same construction. Modifiers are often
misplaced or are left dangling. Most misplaced modifiers tend to be simple
modifiers that slip into the wrong place in a sentence.
For example: He barely
kicked that ball twenty yards.
In this example did he
barely kick it or did it barely go twenty yards? The proper sentence structure
is:
He kicked that ball barely
twenty yards.
Barely is the modifier that
has been misplaced in the first sentence. (Modifier
1)
A dangling modifier is a
modifier that improperly modifies something.
For Example: Changing the
oil every three thousand miles, the car seemed to run better. To fix this
sentence we need to show who is changing the oil.
Correct: Changing the oil
every 3,000 miles, Fred found that he could get much better gas mileage.
There are two types of run-on sentences. The first is a comma splice and the second and less common is called a fused sentence.
A
fused sentence is a type of mechanical error created by incorrectly joining
independent clauses. (LEO 1) A few ways to correct fused sentences are:
Connect
Clauses with a comma and a coordinating conjunction.
A comma splice is when two or more independent clauses are connected by a
comma without a coordinating conjunction.
The seven coordinating conjunctions in English are and, but, or, nor,
for, so, and yet. However is a transitional word but
not a conjunction.
A sentence fragment is a group of words that does not have an independent
clause that could stand alone. They are easy to recognize when they are
alone but can sometimes be hard to recognize when appearing next to related
sentences.