Posted August 14, 2006 at 2:40 pm by Severed Head
Hi, welcome to another compelling article with me, Severed Head. Today, I will be teaching grammar and giving some examples of common mistakes and how they can be fixed.
First of all, take a look at this sentence:
•It’s in our country’s interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm’s way.
Can someone tell me what is wrong with this sentence? That is correct, the speaker did not consider antecedents while he was talking. When he said “them”, he was mistakenly referring to “those who would do us harm” as opposed to members of his own country, who, in reality, he would want to protect.
•Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we… They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
This implies that “we” also never stop thinking about ways to harm or own people. Perhaps this should be read as if we are always thinking about harming the enemies’ country and people, but this is not made clear by the speaker.
Here is the next example:
•See, one of the interesting things in the Oval Office — I love to bring people into the Oval Office — right around the corner from here — and say, this is where I office, but I want you to know the office is always bigger than the person.
For starters, “office” is clearly not a verb. Aside from this obvious misuse of the word “office”, there is another mistake. While the office is more than likely bigger than a person, the ending clause “the office is always bigger than the person” is probably meant to be a phrase commonly used in the vernacular, which is “bigger in person”.
Again, be careful when using the vernacular:
•Quotas are bad for America. It’s not the way America is all about.
The speaker probably meant to say “It’s not what America is all about”, a phrase commonly used in the vernacular. While “about” is a preposition, and prepositions should not come at the end of sentences, it is generally acceptable if it is used in the vernacular.
Don’t forget to use some simple logic!:
•I have learned from mistakes I may or may not have made.
I’m not sure if this is a grammatical error, but by saying one “[has] learned from mistakes”, this clearly implies that this process of learning has already been accomplished. Therefore, it is not necessary to say “I may or may not have made” and should instead read like this: “I have made”.
I’m sure a lot of you hate prepositions, but sometimes an improper use of prepositions could change the meaning of a sentence entirely:
•Nothing can be further than the truth
While anything “can” be further than the truth, it should recognized that the helping verb “could” is more appropriate for this sentence. Now, by saying “Nothing could be further than the truth”, this implies that saying that truth is an absolute infinite value, which it may very well be; however, the preposition that the speaker probably intended to use was “from”, implying that some previous statement could not be called the truth due to its falsehood.
A common mistake is to confuse two words that sound similar, such as “hostage” and hostile”, as seen here:
•We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile.
Aside from the misuse of the word “hostile”, this sentence is rather awkwardly worded by reading the verb for a new direct object. This is not necessary and the two direct objects could simply be put together in a sentence like this: “We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation or our allies hostage.”
The tense of verbs is often overlooked, such as in this example:
•I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.
To say that one “[has] made good judgements” in a time that has not occured yet, such as the future, is, again, completely absurd.
Also, avoid using common phrases too much, as they could often confuse the reader/listener:
•It’s your money. You paid for it.
While, in an odd set of circumstances, one may actually pay for money, the second sentence in this example would make a meaning more clear if it said “You have earned it.”
Be careful when using compartive adjectives too:
•I believe the results of focusing our attention and energy on teaching children to read and having an education system that’s responsive to the child and to the parents, as opposed to mired in a system that refuses to change, will make America what we want it to be — a more literate country and a hopefuller country.
When making a sentence talking about making places more literate, it is important to note that, if you make a mistake, there is a great amount of irony that will make you look like a fool. In this case, the speaker said “hopefuller”, which is most certainly not a word. The speaker did get it correct the first time by saying “more literate” and he should’ve followed the same pattern by saying “a more hopeful”.
Making up words like “hopefuller” is a common practice among many, but these are not considered proper grammar. Here is another example:
•I don’t think we need to be subliminable about the differences between our views on prescription drugs.
While the speaker probably meant to say “subliminal”, this sentence still does not flow smoothly or, for that matter, make much sense. Word choice is very important. The word subliminal, as defined by The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, means:
1. Below the threshold of conscious perception. Used of stimuli. 2. Inadequate to produce conscious awareness but able to evoke a response: subliminal propaganda.
However, the word esoteric is defined as “Not publicly disclosed; confidential.” This word would make much more sense.
Again, there is great irony in the following sentence due to its meaning and the solecism used:
•Reading is the basics of all learning.
By saying a something “is” something else, this implies that the complement will be singular just like the subject, but the speaker uses a plural noun. It should, therefore, say “basic” instead of “basics”.
In this next example, a similar problem occurs, but this time it is a problem in subject-verb agreement:
•Our priorities is our faith
As the subject is a plural noun, the verb should also be plural. In this case, it should be “are” instead of “is”.
Here is another example of poor subject-verb agreement:
•I think he needs to stand up and say if he thought the president were wrong on policy and issues, he ought to say where.
The words “president” and “were” do not agree. Instead, the word “were” should be replaced with the word “was”.
Another relationship that is overlooked is that between a noun and its relative pronoun:
•I have a different vision of leadership. A leadership is something who brings people together.
As a leadership is not a person, the word “who” should not be used. However, it would make much more sense if the last sentence read “A leader is someone who brings people together.”
Be careful when using too many conjuctions because this could change the meaning of your sentence entirely:
•If you’re sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign.
The speaker probably meant to say “the politics of cynicism, polls, and principles”, which would imply that the words “cynicism”, “polls”, and “prinicples” all belong with the preposition. However, by using a conjuction after cynicism, it implies that “polls” and “priniciples” are both objects of the phrase “tired of”. Therefore, the original sentence implies that if one is sick of “priniciples”, he should “come and join [that] campaign.”
Before you begin using metaphors, make sure they make sense:
•We’ll be a country where the fabrics are made up of groups and loving centers.
To say that a country is made of fabrics is just plain silly. Also, to say that fabrics are made of up of “groups and loving centers” is equally silly. The word “fabrics” could be substituted for a more universally applicable term such as “innards”. Also, while “loving” in this case means “caring”, it could be misconstrued to mean something else in conjuction with the word “centers”.
Be careful not to confuse cause and effect relationsips, as shown in this example:
•[I want to] make sure everybody who has a job, wants a job.
While many people who have jobs clearly want a job, regardless of whether they enjoy having one or not, this is probably meant to have been said as this: “[I want to] make sure everybody who wants a job gets or has a job.”
Next, we will handle how to avoid redundancies with a few examples:
•They misunderestimated me.
Here, the word “underestimated” would suffice. By adding “mis-” as a prefix, this implies the opposite of “underestimated”, which would be said more easily with the word “overestimated”.
•It’s a time of sorrow and sadness when we lose a loss of life.
This sentence is redundant for it is highly unlikely that one would “lose a loss of life.” This could be fixed by saying “when we lose a life” or “when a loss of life occurs”, but to lose a loss of life makes very little sense.
•I’m hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.
Simply by using the word “succeed”, it implies that it is done with success. In fact, it is unlikely that many succeed with failure. Therefore, the whole second sentence in this quotation is highly unnecessary and displays common sense.
•It’s no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.
The fact that there are people who are undecided already implies that they could choose one way or another. Of course it is not exaggeration to define a word. This sentence is unncessary in just about any situation, unless it is to explain the meaning of “undecided”.
•It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas.
An import basically means something that has come from outside of our nation, generally assumed to be from overseas. Therefore, this last sentence is pretty much redundant.
This one is a bit tough:
•I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.
This sentence is just plain confusing and could be taken a number of different ways, but it is most certainly incorrect. Perhaps the speaker meant to say “put out food for your family”, or “to put the debt of food on your family”, but, out of context, this sentence makes absolutely no sense unless one were to physically put food on top of his family, which is just absurd.
This stuff is way too hard to understand and I can’t possibly imagine what the speaker meant to say, although, at times, it is probably due to these quotes being taken out of context. Don’t let this happen to you!:
•This is still a dangerous world. It’s a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses.
•Redefining the role of the United States from enablers to keep the peace to enablers to keep the peace from peacekeepers is going to be an assignment.
•Actually, I–this may sound a little West Texan to you, but I like it. What I’m talking about–when I’m talking about myself, and when he’s talking about myself, all of us are talking about me.
•Families is where our nation takes hope, where wings take dream.
•See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.
•We have got to stop using food. It hurts the farmers.
Thank you to good ol’ George W. Bush for saying every one of these quotes and encouraging people not to be quite as ignorant in terms of the English language. I hope you enjoyed this article. I know I enjoyed writing it… Here are some extra quotes just for the hell of it:
•I wish I wasn’t the war president. Who in the heck wants to be a war president? I don’t.
•See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don’t attack each other. Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.
•I hope you leave here and walk out and say, ‘What did he say?’
•It’s about past seven in the evening here so we’re actually in different time lines.
•If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.
•A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it.
•I have opinions of my own – strong opinions – but I don’t always agree with them.
•It’s amazing I won. I was running against peace, prosperity, and incumbency.
•I think if you know what you believe, it makes it a lot easier to answer questions. I can’t answer your question.
•The best way to relieve families from time is to let them keep some of their own money.
•As governor of Texas, I have set high standards for our public schools, and I have met these standards.
•Well, I think if you say you’re going to do something and don’t do it, that is trustworthiness.