Apostrophes DON’T form plurals!

Perhaps the most common of all mistakes made with plurals is the use of the apostrophe. Apostrophes have two clear uses in English grammar: to form an abbreviation, or to demonstrate ownership. Neither of these is concerned with plurals, so you should never use an apostrophe to suggest that there is more than one of something! The mistake clearly arises from the fact that the letter ‘s’ always follows the apostrophe when it is being used show that something belongs to somebody.

For example: That is Sarah’s sandwich.

It is therefore easy to see why many writers mistakenly connect this concept to the use of the letter ‘s’ to show that a word is plural, as demonstrated by this cake manufacturer. However, this is a misconception, so remember: think plural, think NO APOSTROPHE!!

Plurals are for Nouns, not Adjectives

When we are talking about more than one of something, that thing is usually a noun. Nouns are the names of things, for example table, tree, or person. Adjectives are the words we use to describe things, such as happy, brown or bouncy.

When we are describing more than one thing, it is important to remember that the letter ‘s’ we use to denote the plural is only attached to the noun, not to the adjective, as in this restaurant menu. Adjectives never take the letter ‘s’ to indicate that they are attached to a plural noun.

For example: green trees, NOT greens trees

Making Plurals from Words Ending in ‘y’

Words that end in ‘y’ cause particular problems when it comes to plurals, because some should end ‘ys’, whereas others change to ‘ies’. Many writers struggle with this concept, causing a plethora of spelling mistakes (as thoroughly demonstrated by this party organiser’s advert) but in fact there is a clear grammar rule you can use to get it right every time.

TOP GRAMMAR TIP: To make a plural from a word that ends in ‘y’, simply look at the letter immediately before the ‘y’. If it is a vowel, the word stays the same and you simply add the letter ‘s’ at the end.

For example: monkey becomes monkeys, boy becomes boys, play becomes plays.

On the other hand, if the letter before the ‘y’ is a consonant, you must remove the ‘y’ from the end of the word and then add the ending ‘ies’.

For example: fairy becomes fairies, try becomes tries, daisy becomes daisies.

My and Our

Another common mistake involving plurals is mixing up the possessive adjectives we use to say that something belongs to someone.

Remember, these possessive adjectives are singular: my, his, her, its

And these are plural: our, their, theirs

Finally, don’t make the same mistake as this over-zealous car owner, who failed to use a possessive adjective at all!

Just remember these simple rules to get your plural spellings right every time!

Translations

As this unfortunate sign-maker discovered to his peril, simple typos can often occur in signs and other types of writing, especially when printing translations in different languages. We don’t possess the same instinctive capacity to pick up errors in a foreign language as we do in our own, so if you are writing in a language that is not your native tongue, it is often worth using a proofreading service to pick up on any small errors you may not have noticed. This simple typo would have been quickly picked up by any proofreading service, but the result of allowing it to go to press unchecked is somewhat disastrous!

Mechanical errors

Modern word-processing programs with their wizardry of automatic spelling and grammar checks have helped thousands of writers to avoid careless errors for some time now. But just occasionally, these clever computers can actually be a hindrance rather than a help, as we have a tendency to become over-reliant on their proofreading powers! The spell check program on Microsoft Word, for example, will automatically correct a misspelled word if it is very similar to the word you intended to write. But without a human brain, it might just choose the wrong word for the sentence you were writing! Just like this supermarket sign, where the misspelled word ‘thighs’ has been corrected by a spell check program to a different word altogether!

This creates a big problem, because the new word, whilst incorrect in context, is nonetheless correctly spelled and so won’t show up on your spelling check, slipping under the radar and into your final draft. Another good reason to take advantage of the fresh pair of eyes provided by a professional proofreading service!

Silly spelling slips

Occasionally we all fall prey to the inevitable traps of simple human error. In the case of this political printer, it seems that concentrating very carefully to ensure the correct spelling of the tricky word ‘committee’ has prevented the realisation that the much simpler word ‘county’ above has been incorrectly written!

Just think how annoyed they were to realise their mistake after they’d already blown up all those balloons…another one for the proofreading service!

We had to split our blog on funny grammar mistakes involving punctuation into two parts, because there are just so many of them! Are you one of the many people who struggle on a daily basis to remember when and where the right punctuation is required? If so then this blog is for you! Read on and follow our simple guide to perfect punctuation every time!

Commas

Commas are one of the very simplest, most common punctuation marks used in English grammar and one of the very first things we learn, yet still people seem to get themselves tied up in all sorts of knots trying to remember where the comma goes.

Uses of Commas

Very simply, a comma is most commonly used to divide separate ideas, or clauses in a sentence. These may be connected thoughts:

We went to the seaside, but it was rainy.

Unconnected thoughts:

I was in the pantry cleaning up, Mum was upstairs and Dad was in the garage.

Or lists:

I ate a hamburger, chips and a bag of onion rings.

Commas for ellipsis

Sometimes a pair of commas is used to form almost the same effect as a pair of brackets, around an ‘aside’ or separate remark in a sentence that could be removed without affecting the sense of the sentence. This is often extra or non-essential information.

For example:

Harry Brown, who was a selfish man, never shared his morning toast with his wife.

Grammar TOP TIP: The easiest way to tell when a comma is needed is to sound the sentence out loud or in your head. Wherever you would naturally pause when reading it, you should put in a comma!

So this tube sign manufacturer has rather embarrassingly put a comma in completely the wrong place, as you certainly would not pause between the words gorgeous and looking in this sentence!

Quotation Marks

Quotation marks are used in English grammar to show when somebody is speaking, or sometimes to report what somebody said. They come in pairs, with one set at the beginning of the first word that is spoken and the other at the end of the last.

You would think that quotation marks (also called speech marks) would be one of the very simplest punctuation marks to master, yet people still manage to make grammar mistakes with them time and time again as you can see from the example at the top of the page.

Quotation marks ARE NOT for emphasis!

This problem seems to arise because of the colloquial tradition of using quotation marks, or ‘inverted commas’, to emphasise, or stress a silly, or erroneous idea, or to suggest scepticism on the part of the narrator. For example:

My son had a “terrible flu” on the day of his maths test.

Because of this tradition, people often make the mistake of believing that quotation marks can somehow be used for emphasis in a sentence, like using bold or capitalised font. However all they achieve is to make it sound like they are suggesting something in their sentence is likely to be untrue!

So this bakery seems to be warning its customers that whatever that food stuff is on the shelf, it is only masquerading as “bread”!

Different phonetic sounds

One major reason for the confusion is that ‘ch’ can take on both a hard, ‘k’ sound (as in school, or scholar) and a softer, ‘chu’ sound (as in church, or chew).

It is most common in English grammar to see ‘ch’ making the softer sound, often occurring at the end of words like teach, beach and reach. For this reason, some writers panic when encountering the harder consonant sound it makes when preceded by an ‘s’, and forget to add in the ‘h’ altogether. As you can see, this mistake has been made by whoever has written this local sign. Hopefully the students lucky enough to benefit from the scholarship fund will also be taught how to spell it correctly!

Different spellings: ch and tch

The ‘ch’ sound is also problematic in English spelling rules because the same sound can be made by two different spellings: in some words the sound is spelled ‘ch’ and in others it appears as ‘tch’.

Many writers struggle to remember which spelling is correct for which words, but luckily there is a simple rule to help you remember the difference.

The ‘tch’ spelling is used after a short vowel sound.

For example: witch, itch, batch, catch, fetch, botch, kitchen

At all other times, ‘ch’ is the correct spelling.

For example: each, breach, ouch, touch

Another problem with spelling words containing ‘ch’ is that it is unusual to see two consonants combined where usually they are used separately, causing some writers to panic and forget which way round the letters should go

Unfortunately this poor road sign painter made a very public display of his simple spelling mistake!

‘Homophones’ is the name given in English grammar to pairs of words which sound the same but have different spellings and meanings. These groups of words often cause a great deal of trouble with spelling, as people know which meaning of the word they want to use, but just can’t remember which is the correct spelling to go with it! To make matters worse, although writing the wrong homophone will mean that you have spelt the word incorrectly, it will still be the correct spelling of the other word, so the mistake won’t be picked up by an electronic spelling and grammar check.

One of these pesky pairs that causes the most spelling problems is the combination of ‘which’ and ‘witch’; two words that sound the same but have completely different meanings. Follow our simple guide to make sure you never mix them up again!

Which

Which is by far the more commonly used of the two words, so for a start, it is helpful to remember that this is most likely to be the spelling you need! ‘Which’ is used in English grammar to describe further details about an object that has already been mentioned.

For example: ‘This is my house, which I moved into last year’ or ‘My bicycle, which I love very much, is very rickety!’

Sometimes the same rule can be applied to descriptions of situations.

For example: ‘He moved in next door, which I found very annoying’

TOP TIP: A quick way to check whether this version of ‘which’ is being used is to see if the word ‘that’ would roughly fit in the sentence – if it would, this is probably the correct usage.

‘Which’ can also be used to indicate choice between a number of objects.

For example: ‘Which one do you want’ or ‘Which of these is the best?’

One of the most common spelling mistakes involving the word ‘which’ is to mistakenly insert it in the word ‘sandwich’ as this hapless restaurant owner has mistakenly done!

TOP TIP: People often mistake the word ‘which’ for the word ‘that’. A great quick grammar guide tip is to check whether there should be a comma immediately before the word. If there is, you need ‘which’, if not, you need ‘that’!

Witch

In many ways, the word ‘witch’ is much easier to define than ‘which’, as it is a noun, and simply has one, clear meaning. A ‘witch’ is a sorceress or female magician, as in the Harry Potter stories or Halloween!

For example: The witch waved her wand and rode off on her broomstick!

So if the word you are writing is a noun then this is the spelling you need.

TOP TIP: The simplest way of telling the difference between these two words is to check whether you are talking about a ‘witch’ or sorceress. In any other situation, you need the ‘which’ form.

Unfortunately the poor subtitle typist working on this Australian bush fire story got the wrong end of the stick: we think what was actually said was probably “…controlled burning, which will save bush fires in future…” Oops!

The good news is that unlike some English grammar rules, there are two clear and distinct definitions for these two words. And the even better news is that as well as explaining them to you, we also have a simple top grammar tip to help you always remember the difference between your and you’re.

Your

The word ‘your’ in English grammar quite simply means ‘belonging to you’. It is therefore most often used in sentences describing a person’s possessions.

For example: ‘Are you bringing your dog?’ or ‘Where is your book?’

To keep things nice and simple, the word doesn’t change when the objects become plural, but simply remains ‘your’.

For example: ‘Are these your socks?’ or ‘Your children are lovely’.

Another way the word is occasionally used is to indicate closeness to a person by describing oneself as belonging to them at the end of a letter or message when signing off.

For example: ‘With all my love, your loving Helena’.

So it is clear that the designers of this Gameboy game should have used the word ‘your’ in their graphics, as they were using it to describe the face belonging to Luigi: hence ‘your’ face.

You’re

The word ‘you’re’ also has a very clear definition in English grammar: it is an abbreviation of the phrase ‘you are’. In the shortened version, the apostrophe simply takes the place of the missing ‘a’.

For example: ‘You’re looking very pale’ or ‘you’re coming too, aren’t you?’

So a very simple TOP TIP for learning this grammar rule is just to check whether ‘you are’ fits in place of the word you are using in your sentence. If it does, ‘you’re’ is the version of the word you need, and if not, ‘your’ is the one.

Clearly the company who made this security sign didn’t know about this top tip, as they meant to use ‘you’re’, meaning ‘you are on camera’ but actually have mistakenly used the ‘your’ form instead!

This unfortunate manufacturer has tried to produce a sticker indicating that their goods are ‘fragile’, but the simple rearranging of the ‘a’ and the ‘r’ has resulted in a very funny spelling mistake. These sorts of mistakes, where the letters are correct but not in the right order, are often found in essays and texts written by students of English as a foreign language. If you are having this problem with written English, or are proofreading the work of somebody who is frequently making these sorts of spelling mistakes, it is often helpful to break down the word you are trying to write into sounds. Fragile, for example, breaks down into the sounds ‘fra’ and ‘gile’, so you can hear that the ‘r’ needs to be next to the ‘f’ at the beginning of the word to make the ‘fr’ sound.

TOP TIP: Sounding out loud can often help you to identify these spelling errors, and you can also compare like sounding words to help you get the right spelling – for example ‘fresh’ and ‘Friday’ both start with the same ‘fr’ sound.

This very technique could have come in handy for whoever wrote the label for these vegetables – in this case the mistake is the same and even involves the same letters being wrongly arranged, but here the ‘a’ should be before the ‘r’ instead of after it. Again, sounding out similar sounding words like ‘far’ and ‘car’ would have helped with the correct vowel placement. This misspelling of the ‘ar’ sound is common in students of English as a foreign language, so if you are learning English spellings, a great simple rule to learn is that the sound ‘ah’ (as in ‘car’ or ‘far’) is always spelt ‘ar’, not ‘ra’. So listen to the word you are writing and if it contains that sound, that is the correct spelling to use. (And that’s without even going into the fact that if you look closely you can see the sign that is supposed to say ‘garlic’ is pinned to a box of red onions…!)

The creator of this huge motorway advert has made a slightly different mistake, with the omission of a letter from the word ‘public’. To avoid making the same mistake, make sure you sound out all the hard sounds of the word you are trying to spell and ensure that the correct letters to make those sounds are all included in the word you are writing. So in this case, the word breaks down into the sounds ‘pub’ and ‘lic’, which would help you to realise that you needed to include the letter ‘l’ for the sound ‘lic’ to be correctly formed. I guess spelling just isn’t one of the 15 ‘best things’ about those schools…!

We all assume that big companies and manufacturers can afford to proofread their packaging and text pretty carefully, but every now and then a funny real-life grammar blooper is made even by names as big as Sainsbury’s! Here they have fallen into exactly the same trap we mentioned at the beginning, mixing up two letters in the word ‘marinade’ to spell it incorrectly. Clearly their proofreader was sleeping on the job, as the item managed to make it on to the shelves anyway!

TOP TIP: This mixing up of vowels is one of the most common English grammar mistakes – study vowel combinations and take extra care when writing words containing two consecutive vowels to avoid making these errors.

I before E…

As we all learn at school, “I before E” is a rhyme to help us remember the most common combination of the letters ‘i’ and ‘e’ in English spelling. Where the two letters are found next to one another in a word, the ‘i’ almost always comes first, making the sound ‘ie’.

Some good examples are: friend, tried, priest, fiend and cried.

The problem is that the sound made by the double vowel in each of these words is not always the same, and it is this tricky variable pronunciation of the ‘ie’ sound that causes it to be such a common spelling mistake. It is for this reason that a rhyme is used to help pupils remember that the ‘i’ should come before the ‘e’.

Since it is such a staple of English grammar lessons, it is rather embarrassing that this school have handed out a reward card with the word ‘achievement’ incorrectly spelt – let’s just hope the super star award wasn’t for learning spelling rules!

…Except after C

The major exception to the “I before E except after C” rule, is that when a letter ‘c’ is directly before the vowels their positions are reversed, changing to “ei”.

For example: ceiling, received, deceitful

However, there are also a few other common exceptions that it is useful to remember, as they are frequently used words and it is worth learning their correct spellings. In these cases, there is no letter ‘c’, but the ‘ei’ form is still used.

The most common examples are: their, weigh, sleigh and vein

Unfortunately for this hapless Dairy Queen restaurant, ‘specials’ is not one of the exceptions to the ‘I before E’ rule – in fact, the word doesn’t even actually have the two vowels next to one another, so this poor sign-maker was wrong on several different levels!

To

The word ‘to’ in English grammar has several meanings. It is used in front of the infinitive (or stem) form of the verb:

For example: to eat, to sleep, to walk

In sentence form: I find it hard to sleep; I am trying to eat

It is also used as a preposition when somebody is going ‘to’ a place:

For example: I am going to school; shall we go to the cinema

So whoever designed this bathroom sign has used the wrong form of the word, because they need the ‘to’ form to precede the verb ‘turn off’.

Top tip: whenever you are writing the word, check whether it is followed by a verb in the infinitive or a place – if so, the chances are you need to use ‘to’.

Too

The word ‘too’ is even simpler as far as English grammar rules go, because it has only two very clear meanings. One is for excess, when you have more or less of something than is needed:

For example: too many, too much, too far, too few, too soon

The other meaning is interchangeable with the phrase ‘as well’:

For example: I am coming too; you’re my friend too, they think so too

It is a more common English grammar mistake for people to use the word ‘to’ when they mean ‘too’ than vice versa, so make sure you remember to use this form when you are talking about something being ‘too’ much.

You can also do a quick check to see whether the phrase ‘as well’ would fit in your sentence in place of the word – if it does, then the form you are looking for is ‘too’.

If you follow these simple rules you should manage to avoid the mistake of this sign maker, who is using the word to mean ‘too’ much of something (in this case ‘too bad’) and therefore has used the wrong form of the word again!

However, the type of homophones that cause the greatest number of English grammar mistakes are those which are spelt differently but sound the same (these are also known as heterographs, but homophone is the most common term).

One of the most common examples is the set of words ‘there, their and they’re’, which are commonly mistaken for one another. This unfortunate salesperson has made a mistake by suggesting that there is something strange (bizarre) about their sale, when the word they actually meant to use was ‘bazaar’, meaning a market or fete!

One of the best ways to identify homophones is to look at the vowels in the word. It is often the vowels and their position within the word that change the meaning, whilst the consonants often stay the same. So if you are writing a word down and you know that it has two different spellings, try to concentrate on the vowels to make sure you are using the correct version for the meaning of your sentence. This petrol company, for example, has mistaken an ‘a’ for an ‘e’, accidentally advertising that their fuel is ready to fight with a sword (duel) instead of indicating that it is made up of two components (dual) as they actually intended!

One great way to beat homophone mistakes is to be aware of the most common letter groups and combinations that result in grammar mistakes. The easiest way to do this is to think of different letter sets that make the same sound.

Some of the most common groups are:

‘ale’ and ‘ail’

For example: sail/sale, tail/tale, pail/pale‘eigh’ and ‘ai’ and ‘a’

For example: weight/wait, eight/ate

‘wh’ and ‘w’

For example: where/wear, which/witch, what/watt

‘ea’ and ‘ee’

For example: weak/week, leek/leak, peek/peak

This final example shows where our next real life grammar mistake has occurred, as the maker of this children’s toy has accidentally used the word ‘peak’ (meaning tip or apex) when they meant to use ‘peek’ (meaning to look surreptitiously)!

It is very important to be aware of common homophones when you are editing or proofreading a text, as many people make the mistake of thinking that the word is correct if it has not been picked up by a spell check programme. As homophones are actually spelt correctly but may be incorrect for the context of the sentence they are in, they are one of the most important mistakes for a proofreader to pick up manually.

Another very common mistake is in words which end with ‘e’, as these often have homophones where the vowels come in the middle of the word instead.

For example: steak/stake, file/phial, break/brake

This common grammar mistake is illustrated by our last example, where the writer of this sign has accidentally suggested that leaning back somehow stops the chair from moving (brakes) when he actually means that it damages (breaks) the chair!

There is no easy rule to avoid making homophone mistakes, but becoming familiar with these common letter groups can help you to identify places in your writing where you may be at higher risk of making mistakes, helping you to check through your work more thoroughly. Aside from that, just reading as much as you possibly can will also help, as you will become more and more familiar with the correct spelling and meaning of a word the more you read it.