What Is Grammar All About – Everything You Need To Know About Grammar And 7 Common Mistakes

Would you like to know all about what is grammar and some of the common grammar mistakes? We will look into that in this article.

A lot of people have misconceptions about what Grammar is in English as they confuse it with Spelling rules or Punctuation in English. 

As writers and students, our biggest aim is to write a perfect article, essay or content without any errors, but sometimes we realize that some errors still exist in our content. But for you to know what how to go about these errors. You have to have prior knowledge of what grammar is all about.

Grammar has to do with a set of rules on how sentences are organized and structured by the speaker or writer. These grammar mistakes may appear because we used the wrong words in our work or did not arrange them in the right manner. It is the whole structure of a language consisting of syntax and morphology.

However, in arranging these words into sentences and ensuring that it has a meaning and convey the writer’s idea, there might be mistakes which, if seen by someone else might be embarrassing for you. These are the common grammar mistakes we make when writing or giving a speech.

If you would like to know more about the most common grammar mistakes that we make when writing, this article will tell you all about it.

Common Grammar Mistakes

There are many mistakes we make while writing which seem correct or perfect but they are not, and most of these grammar mistakes are very common to the extent that we use them almost every time. This might be the reason why someone else finds fault in your perfect article.

These common grammar mistakes have been outlined below, why don’t you check it out?

1. Subject-verb agreement error

This is one of the most common grammar mistakes that people make. In a sentence in which there is the presence of a subject and a verb, there ought to be an agreement between the subject and the verb in the sentence.

Thus, if the subject is singular, then the verb used should also be singular and vice versa.

Example; “Jude and Mike is running to the beach” and “Jude and Mike are running to the beach”.

In the first sentence, you notice that “Jude and Mike” (the subject is plural) and “is” the auxiliary verb in the sentence is, singular, which means the first sentence is wrong, but in the second sentence, the subject and the auxiliary verb present are plurals. Therefore, the second sentence is correct.

2. Comma splice

 This is a punctuation mistake that is commonly made. It occurs when a comma is used between two independent or separate sentences instead of a period or semicolon.

Example: There was no light yesterday; Steve came to school this morning wearing a rumpled uniform.

“There was no light yesterday” and “Steve came to school this morning wearing a rumpled uniform” are two stand-alone sentences that cannot be joined together with a comma. Therefore, the above sentence is wrong.

The use of a semicolon or a comma with a coordinating conjunction can be a great way of correcting such errors, but in some situations where you may not notice that such a common grammar mistake is in your work, the use of a punctuation corrector is also advised.

3. Pronoun Agreement

When using a pronoun to refer to a noun in a sentence, ensure that the numbers correspond. I.e. If you use a singular noun, then the pronoun used should also be singular and if a plural noun is used, then the pronoun should also be plural.

Example: “Every mother is expected to the their child’s best friend”

The sentence above is not correct because the noun “mother” is singular and is expected to go with a singular pronoun but the reverse is the case because the pronoun which is used is plural.

The Correct sentence is “every Mother is expected to be her child’s best friend”

4. Homophone Misplacement

 A homophone is a term used to describe a word that has the same pronunciation as another but not the same spelling and meaning.

This can be one of the common grammar mistakes we can make when writing, especially words that have the same sound. You may mistake you’re and your because they have the same pronunciation.

Example:

Incorrect; The thief ran away with you’re purse

Correct; The thief ran away with your purse

Homophone misplacement is a common grammar mistake that is mostly made if someone is giving a lecture and you are expected to write it down; that is when you mix the two words because they have similar sounds.

5. Run-on Sentences

Similar to the comma splice is the run-on sentence, it refers to a situation where two standalone sentences are joined together without using the appropriate punctuation or coordinating conjunction.

Example:

Incorrect; He loves to read books she prefers to watch movies

Correction: he loves to read books, but she prefers to watch movies

6. Misplacement of contraction and Apostrophes

Contractions in grammar are when two words are joined together as one using an apostrophe. Examples: it is -> it’s, they are -> they’re, You are -> you’re.

However, some of these words can be misused or misplaced with another, e.g. “it’s” may be misplaced with “its”

Incorrect: It’s raining outside

Correct: It’s raining outside

7. Capitalization

Have you ever written an article as a student only to realize that your instructor reduced many marks from your work, which you thought was perfect?

Why don’t you check if the error is from your capitalization? Not capitalizing words that ought to be capitalized whether they occur at the beginning of a sentence or the middle of the sentence a common grammar mistake that ought to be corrected.

These words include:

1. Words that occur at the beginning of a sentence
2. Names of people, places and organizations
3. Days of the week and months
4. Holidays, such as Christmas, New Year’s Eve and so on.
5. Titles that appear before the names of people, e.g. Mr., Dr., President, Mrs., Madam, Brand names, book names, etc.

Conclusion 

You don’t always have to go through the stress of correction when you have grammar apps, but before that, you need to know what grammar is all about and some of the common grammar mistakes that there are.

This is why we have looked into some of the things you need to know about Grammar and common mistakes that you could make. We hope you will get to improve your use of grammar when writing.

Having been through this article, we hope it has been helpful and educative. Till Next Time.