Five Worryingly Widespread Grammatical Errors
It’s the only the true grammar snob that sneers at an isolated mistake (and yes, I include myself in that list). Of greater concern is when mistakes become so widespread that they threaten to become accepted usage, and has plagued those with teaching jobs for years. That’s just not on. Here are five of the most confusingly common and worryingly widespread grammatical mistakes:
THE GREENGROCER’S APOSTROPHE
Perhaps the most well-known and widespread error, the erroneous apostrophe before the S on plurals has been made famous by greengrocers offering ’carrot’s'and ’apple’s’. Now worryingly prevalent, it is a misuse of the suffix for possession. A sign saying ’carrot’s £1'should point to a pound being held by a carrot. Point this out to your local veg man. He will thank you.
IT’S ITS
I have little sympathy for most mistakes, but this is a tricky one. Its denotes possession, breaking the very rule set out in point 1. The apostrophe indicates a missing letter - the I in it is. The apostrophe appears to offer little to the budding linguist than confusion and embarrassment. Speaking of which…
YOUR & THEIR
A whole new minefield here, as your (belonging to you), their (belonging to them), you’re, they’re (you are and they are) and there (nothing to do with any of the above) collide to cause maximum confusion. The phrase ’you’re over there'has to date been mispelt in about 100 different ways.
ALOT
An odd one this: ’a'in front of a noun is pretty much universally recognised as signifying one of said item. When it comes to ’a lot'however, the rule is broken, well, a lot. Ignoring the space, the two words become one - and alot has become a widespread error, even spreading to album titles.
AND FINALLY!!!
Not a common misconception, nor a misunderstanding of a confusing grammatical rule - this one’s just plain annoying. The increasing proliferation of exclamation marks is a by-product of electronic communication, and has rendered the humble ! a coda to sentences that simply don’t need them. Anyway, that’s enough from me - I’m off for my dinner!!!!!
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