English Study and English Writing (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill SOME COMMON MISTAKES IN GRAMMAR 12. Ordinary errors in writing and speaking occur from a variety of causes. No complete study of even the elements of grammar may be attempted in a textbook like the present one, which is concerned more with advanced composition and literature. Most students emerge from the elementary schools with a confused or imperfect knowledge of grammar. Yet this is due no more to inherent difficulties in the subject itself than it is to very human causes. The first of these is haste. Careless writing is bad writing; just the same as thoughtless speaking is vague or vicious speaking. No teacher and no book can do much for the pupil who never grows out of careless or slipshod habits. Few of us regard seriously enough the common mistakes in grammar; we pass them over as speakers, and hardly hear them as auditors. Yet we should regard a mistake which is the result of carelessness as much more reprehensible than a mistake due to lack of knowledge. Truly, is it not more excusable not to know than it is to know and fail to observe good forms? The second cause of most bad grammar is logical. Little faults in logic, small discrepancies in meaning, legitimate distinctions are often overlooked. A little of our incorrect grammar, being finally adopted, becomes recognized idiom. Yet that accident ? for so it frequently is ? does not justify us in using whatever mode of speech we happen to hit upon. Finally, in the third case, many The proper relationships between subject and verb are shown by the sentences which are printed below. Collective subject: The majority is intent on its purpose. Preposition: He, with his companions, has gone to the athletic contest. Singular subjects with nor: Neither John nor his brother has come. Singular and plural sub...