05/19/08 |
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5 Grammar No-Nos |
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| 1. | Incorrect pronoun agreement. Instead of "The company made their announcement last week," it should be: "The company made its announcement last week." The pronoun "its" is singluar, as is its antecedent, which is "company." | |
| 2. | Dangling participles. "While driving to the post office, the dog jumped in the middle of the street." The way this sentence is written, that's one talented dog! It should be: "While driving to the post office, I saw the dog jump in the middle of the street." |
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| 3. | Comma splice. It's incorrect to write, "Dina works hard, Lucille works harder." In order to connect two independent clauses like this with a comma, you need a conjunction: "Dina works hard, but Lucille works harder." | |
| 4. | Split infinitives. Hey, we love Star Trek as much as the next person, but to say "to boldly go where no man has gone before" is grammatically incorrect. Instead, the makers of the show simply could have moved "boldly" after "to go." Problem solved. | |
| 5. | Passive voice. Technically, there's nothing wrong with using wimpy sentences such as "The kitten was scared by the dog." Yet, a sentence in active voice seems more powerful: "The dog scared the cat." We work-at-homers should take advantage of whatever power we can find! | |
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