I’m writing this for today in place of yesterday’s missing Grammar Wednesday. I was very busy all day yesterday and didn’t get a chance to post. To my (two) loyal Grammar Wedensday readers, I’m sorry.
To make it up to you, I’m posting thirteen grammar mistakes it seems all TCC students make. I spent at least half an hour in each of my classes this week going over these perennial favorites:
1. “A LOT” is TWO words.
2. “Too,” “to” and “two” are three different words.
3. “Affect” is a verb. “Effect” is a noun.
4. It’s “could/would/should HAVE,” not “could/would/should OF.”
5. “Except” generally means to leave out; “accept” generally means to take in.
6. The first-person personal pronoun needs to be capitalized. It’s “I,” not “i.”
7. The period ALWAYS goes INSIDE the quotation marks.
8. “Then” denotes a quality of time or sequence; “than” signals a comparison.
9. “Didn’t,” “can’t,” “won’t,” and “shouldn’t” all need apostrophes.
10. “We’re,” “were,” “where,” and “wear” are all different words.
11. “Their” is a plural possessive pronoun. “There” is most often an adverb that is a marker of location. “They’re” is a contraction meaning “they are.”
12. “Who” is for people; “that” is for things.
13. Conjunctions are used to connect two or more words, phrases, or clauses; they are NOT to be used to begin sentences.
