INTRODUCTION

Given that the English language has recently been branded as the first emerging global lingua franca (a language used widely beyond the population of its native speakers), it is virtually impossible nowadays not to know a few basic English phrases. With over a billion people speaking it, a working knowledge of the English language is an essential requirement in many professions, with English being the prominent language in communications, tourism, science, business, aviation, entertainment and diplomacy. Half of all the world’s business deals are conducted in English, two thirds of scientific papers are written in English, and over 70% of all post is written and addressed in English. Although the French, Spanish and Arabic languages may disagree profusely as a matter of cultural pride, it is unsurprising that English is destined to become the unofficial international language in future times. According to recent figures, there are now more English speaking people in China than there are in America.

AVOIDING SENTENCE ERRORS

Avoiding Sentence Errors: Correcting fragments, Run-ons , Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers.

It is important fro us to know how to avoid these kind of sentence errors like sentence fragments, run-ons, misplaced and dangling errors.


Fragments are incomplete sentences that are presented as complete sentences.
Run-ons are two or more sentences that have have been incorrectly joined.
Dangling modifiers are misplaced parts of a sentence that usually end up causing confusion in readers.


Sentence fragments are another common error. A sentence fragment is a group of words, not a complete sentence. Remember that to be a complete sentence, a group of words must have a subject and verb and must express a complete idea. Thus a group of words must not depend on the sentence before it or after it to provide a complete idea.


Examples:
Ran to the car. (fragment that is lacking a subject).
The woman at the bus stop. (lacking a main verb).
Behaving badly. (lacking a subject or a main verb).


Correcting fragments:
Created when phrases as subordinate clauses are punctuated as if they were complete sentences, fragments can be corrected by adding the information that is missing. To rectify fragments, add a subject to a sentence that is missing a subject, add a verb to a sentence that is missing a verb, and connect a subordinate clause to a main clause to create a complete sentence. The following examples are the previous fragments corrected to read as a complete sentences.


Incorrect: Ran to the car.
Correct: She ran to the car.
Incorrect: The woman at the bus stop.
Correct: The woman stood at the bus stop.
Incorrect: Behaving badly.
Correct: The students are behaving badly.

LEVELS OF USAGE

It is crucial to learn to differentiate between levels of usage; essays and reports require a more formally constructed language than everyday speech. It is all too easy to pepper written work with colloquial phrases or weak constructions that come naturally to mind but are incorrect or inadequate in the context of formal writing.


Formal English is, for the most part, a written language. In general, it is confined to the realm of the serious: textbooks, academic or technical works, and most essays you will write at university. You would write formally in a letter of application for a job. Formal language tends to be impersonal and precise, and often uses long, carefully constructed sentences; the formal writer will avoid contractions and abbreviations, and will use a more specialized and complex vocabulary than that employed in everyday speech.


Informal English is the language spoken by most people every day. While educated speakers retain their knowledge of formal rules, they're more relaxed about grammar and less concerned with vocabulary when they're engaged in ordinary conversation. Informal writing reflects this relaxation. Sentences are shorter, and tend to avoid the more formal punctuation of the semi-colon and colon. Contractions and the first person are acceptable. Newspaper articles and columns are usually written informally, and you use informal language when you write to your friends.


Popular English can be colourful and highly expressive, but it is out of place in any writing unless you are reporting speech. In everyday speech, imprecision of meaning or poverty of vocabulary can be compensated for by enthusiastic verbal expression, but you can't wave your hands around, or vary your voice for emphasis when you are writing. Many of the errors in usage covered in the dictionary which follows are a result of a lack of awareness of the difference between written and spoken English.


Here are some examples of how vocabulary changes in each level of usage:

Formal	Informal	Popular

comprehend

understand

get it

intoxicated

drunk

wasted

exhausted

tired

bagged

 dejected                        sad                                     bummed 

VERB USAGE

A verb is a part of speech that usually denotes action ("bring", "read"), occurrence ("to decompose" (itself), "to glitter"), or a state of being ("exist", "live", "soak", "stand"). Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice. It may also agree with the person, gender, and/or number of some of its arguments (what we usually call subject, object, etc.).

Verbs can be conveyed in many ways. Lets look in particular at the word "wear"

She wears a pink dress - This sentence is made up of three main parts, she, being the noun. Wears, being an action or 'doing' word. Pink, describing the noun about to be added to the sentence and, Dress, the noun which pulls all these words together (giving them all one key point) to complete the sentence.

PRONOUN USAGE

A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun. Pronouns can be in one of three cases: Subject, Object, or Possessive. 

Rule 1

Subject pronouns are used when the pronoun is the subject of the sentence. You can remember subject pronouns easily by filling in the blank subject space for a simple sentence.

Example:
______ did the job.
I, you, he, she, it, we, and they all fit into the blank and are, therefore, subject pronouns.

Rule 2

Subject pronouns are also used if they rename the subject. They follow to be verbs such asis, are, was, were, am, and will be.

Examples:
It is he.
This is she speaking.

Rule 3

Object pronouns are used everywhere else (direct object, indirect object, object of the preposition). Object pronouns are me, you, him, her, it, us, and them.

Example:
Jean talked to him.

Rule 4a

A strong clause can stand on its own.

Example:
She is hungry.

Rule 4b

A weak clause begins with words such as although, since, if, when, and because. Weak clauses cannot stand on their own.

Example:
Although she is hungry...

Rule 4c

If a sentence contains more than one clause, isolate the clauses so that you can decide which pronoun is correct.

Example:

Weak                                                                             Strong

[Although she is hungry,]                                          

[she will give him some of her food.]

Rule 5

To decide whether to use the subject or object pronoun after the words than or as, mentally complete the sentence.

Example:
Tranh is as smart as she/her.

Rule 6

Possessive pronouns show ownership and never need apostrophes.
Possessive pronouns: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs

Example:
It's a cold morning.

Rule 7

Reflexive pronouns - myself, himself, herself, itself, themselves, ourselves, yourself, yourselves- should be used only when they refer back to another word in the sentence.

Correct:
I worked myself to the bone.

Incorrect:
My brother and myself did it.
The word myself does not refer back to another word.

Correct:
My brother and I did it.

Incorrect:
Please give it to John or myself.

Correct:
Please give it to John or me.

SUBJECT AND VERB AGREEMENT

The subject and the verb must agree in number: both must be singular or both must be plural. Students have problems with subject verb agreement when the verb is a form of be or have, or when the verb is in present tense.

Rules for subject verb agreement

1.When words like the following are used as subjects, they take singular verb.

2.When every and each come before a singular subject joined by and, the verb is singular.

3.Prepositional phrases that come between the subject and the verb do not change the number of the subject.

4.When the verb comes before the subject as in there or here sentences, it agrees with the subject that immediately follows the verb.

5.“Introductory it” is always singular.

6.Subjects joined by and take a plural verb (except for number 2).

7.Several, many, both, few are plural words and take a plural verb.

8.Some nouns are always plural and always take a plural verb.

9.Some words such as none, any, all, more, most, some, majority, half may take either singular or plural verbs depending on the meaning.

10.When subjects are joined by words such as neither, either, not only the verb must agree with the closer subject.

11.Collective nouns are usually singular when regarded as a unit.

12.Some nouns have the same singular and plural form. They take singular or plural verb depending on the meaning.

13.Expressions stating amount of time, money, weight, volume are plural in form but take a singular verb as in:

        Three weeks is a long time.

        Two hundred dollars is a lot of money.

14.Some nouns look plural with –s but they take a singular verb.

15.Generic references with the require plural verb.

16.Note the use of foreign plurals.

Singular                             Plural

Analysis                              Analyses

Datum                                 Data

Criterion                              Criteria

Radius                                 Radii

17.Don’t forget that some common English words have irregular plurals.

Plural                                  Singular

Child                                     Children

Person                                  People

18.A relative pronoun takes a singular or plural verb depending on which noun it modifies.

PRONOUN AND ANTECEDENT AGREEMENT

           Pronoun

A pronoun is a substitute for a noun. It refers to a person, place, thing, feeling, or quality but does not refer to it by its name. The pronoun in the following sample sentence is bolded.

Antecedent

An antecedent is the word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers, understood by the context. The antecedent in the following sample sentence is bolded.

Agreement

 Pronoun must agree with its antecedent in three ways:

• Person refers to the quality of being.
• Number is the quality that distinguishes between singular (one entity) and plural (numerous entities).
• Gender is the quality that distinguishes the entities as masculine or feminine.

ADJECTIVE AND ADVERB USAGE

Adjectives are words that describe nouns or pronouns. They may come before the word they describe (That is a cute puppy.) or they may follow the word they describe (That puppy is cute.).

Adverbs are words that modify everything but nouns and pronouns. They modify adjectives, verbs, and other adverbs. A word is an adverb if it answers how, when, or where.The only adverbs that cause grammatical problems are those that answer the question how, so focus on these.

Rule 1

Generally, if a word answers the question how, it is an adverb. If it can have an -ly added to it, place it there.

Examples:
She thinks slow/slowly.
She thinks how? slowly.

Rule 2

A special -ly rule applies when four of the senses - taste, smell, look, feel - are the verbs. Do not ask if these senses answer the question how to determine if -ly should be attached. Instead, ask if the sense verb is being used actively. If so, use the -ly.

Examples:
Roses smell sweet/sweetly.
The woman looked angry/angrily.

Rule 3

The word good is an adjective, while well is an adverb.

Examples:
You did a good job.
Good describes the job.

Rule 4

When referring to health, use well rather than good.

Example:
I do not feel well. You do not look well today.

Rule 5

A common error in using adjectives and adverbs arises from using the wrong form for comparison. For instance, to describe one thing we would say poor, as in, "She is poor." To compare two things, we should say poorer, as in, "She is the poorer of the two women." To compare more than two things, we should say poorest, as in, "She is the poorest of them all."

Examples:

One                                             Two                                                 Three or More

sweet                                         sweeter                                                sweetest

bad                                             worse                                                  worst

efficient                                      more efficient                                        most efficient

Rule 6

Never drop the -ly from an adverb when using the comparison form.

Correct:
She spoke quickly.

Incorrect:
She spoke quicker than he did.

Correct:
Talk quietly.

Incorrect:
Talk quieter.

Rule 7

When this, that, these, and those are followed by nouns, they are adjectives. When they appear without a noun following them, they are pronouns.

Examples:
This house is for sale.
This is an adjective here.

Rule 8

This and that are singular, whether they are being used as adjectives or as pronouns. Thispoints to something nearby while that points to something "over there."

Examples:

This dog is mine.
That dog is hers.

Rule 9

These and those are plural, whether they are being used as adjectives or as pronouns.These points to something nearby while those points to something "over there."

Example:
These babies have been smiling for a long time.

Rule 10

Use than to show comparison. Use then to answer the question when.

Example:
I would rather go skiing than rock climbing.

MISCELLANEOUS PROBLEMS IN USAGE

Writers need to choose their words carefully to make sure that they are not confusing words that sound alike or have similar but slightly different meanings or that they are not using an incorrect word or expression.

Negative Sentences

Do not use two negative words in the same clause. That creates an error called adouble negative.
Double Negative – I can't wait no longer.
Correct – I can't wait any longer.
Correct – I can wait no longer.

The most common negative words are never, no, nobody, none, not, nothing, andnowhere. Other negative words to watch out for are barely, but, hardly, andscarcely.
Double Negative – There isn't but one cookie left.
Correct – There is only one cookie left.
Double Negative – I couldn't hardly wait.
Correct – I could hardly wait.

Common Usage Problems

Many words that have similar meanings, spellings, or sounds are confused for each other. Here are some pairs that give writers and speakers trouble:
accept / except beside / besides set / sit
affect / effect farther / further than / then
all ready / already lay / lie their / there
among / between of / have to / too
bad / badly saw / seen where / that