No matter how much you
master the language of English; grammatical errors are assured to come in your
way. We all spend long time learning grammar at school, but some areas of
grammar remain problematic for even the most prolific of writers. Grammar is
tricky and sometimes confusing, but when you become a professional writer you
need to be careful and make sure that you use correct grammar all the
times. No matter how prepossessing your language is, wrong grammar can put
off even the most indulgent of readers. So, the only solution is to use grammar
well. There are quite a few issues that most writers stumble at while writing.
Here is a list of such mistakes or confusing areas in grammar, to help you tame
the perturbing grammar issues.
Who
vs. Whom
One of most confusing
pair of words in grammar is who and whom. Just remember that you use ‘who’ for
a sentence’s subject and ‘whom’ for a sentence’s object. When you want to
substitute it with ‘she’ or ‘he’ or any other noun, then that is the proper
case for using ‘who’, and not ‘whom’. On the other hand, if you can use
‘him’ or ‘her’ instead of the word in question, then remember to us ‘whom’ and
not ‘who’.
Example
The singer, for ‘who’
the audience went wild, was a young boy is wrong.
The singer, for ‘whom’
the audience went wild, was a young boy is the correct version.
The judge called out to
the young boy, ‘whom’ appeared to be crying on stage is wrong.
The judge called out to
the young boy, ‘who’ appeared to be crying on stage is right.
Fewer
vs. Less
The word ‘fewer’ is to
be used when you are talking about objects or things that you can count or things
to which you can assign a particular number whereas as less is used to describe
uncountable entities.
Examples of few
There are fewer
sailboats in the bay this morning than yesterday.
Fewer people are
expected to attend the conference this year.
In both cases, you can
assign numbers – that is, number of sailboats and number of people.
Examples of less
I would like less milk
in my tea.
A little less pride
might have helped him to stay grounded.
Subject
and Object Pronouns
The next grammar cumbersome
we will deal with is the usage of ‘me’, ‘my’, and ‘I’. Many pronouns in the
English language have varied forms and different roles in a sentence. While the
word ‘I’ is the subject form of the pronoun and ‘me’ is the object form of it.
Examples: Subject form
My mother and me will
go on a vacation together.
Here, ‘my mother and
me’ together constitutes the subject. Now, look at the sentence, after removing
‘mother’ and only ‘me’ as the subject. Question yourself whether you can say
‘…me will go on a vacation…’? No; ‘me’ cannot be used as a subject. So, replace
it with ‘I’ – a subject, such that the correct sentence reads:
My mother and I will go
on a vacation together.
Pronoun
The taxi driver was
very helpful to my mother and I when we got lost in Kolkata.
Here, the taxi driver
is the subject and ‘my mother and I’ can be taken together as the object. Now, ‘I’
is a subject pronoun. To make it clearer, say it aloud, by breaking it up: ‘The
taxi driver was very helpful to ‘I’ when we got ….’ Now, this will seem wrong.
So, the correct sentence will read:
The taxi driver was
very helpful to my mother and me when we got lost in Kolkata.
Therefore the correct
usage of ‘I’ is as a verb’s subject. The object form of the same is ‘me’, which
is used as a verb’s object.
That
Vs Which
Using ‘that’ and
‘which’ interchangeably looks easy, but in most cases, you cannot and should
not. Remember that ‘that’ is a restrictive clause while ‘which’ is a
non-restrictive one. So, what is a restrictive clause? A restrictive clause is
a part of a sentence which you cannot remove as it particularly restricts
another part of the same sentence.
Examples:
The automobile
conglomerate, which has those famous engineers, is based out of Tennessee.
The automobile
conglomerate that has those famous engineers is based out of Tennessee.
The first sentence
talks about a ‘particular’ automobile conglomerate. The audience knows which conglomerate
is being discussed. So, even if you leave out ‘which has those famous
engineers’, the meaning of the sentence still remains the same. The information
about the famous engineers merely adds more information for the audience. The
crux of the sentence lies in the understanding that particular automobile
conglomerate is based out of Tennessee. In
the second sentence, the ‘that has those famous engineers’ is restricted to the
‘automobile conglomerate’. It suggests that the audience and the speaker were
talking about multiple conglomerates, and the conglomerate with those famous
engineers is based out of Tennessee. If you remove ‘that has those famous
engineers’, then it is not known which conglomerate you are talking about.
The rule of thumb for
easy usage is to consider the context of usage. If the information you are providing
after the ‘that’ or ‘which’ is removed and that changes the meaning of the
sentence, then remember, you can use only ‘that’. On the other hand, if removal
of the part after ‘that’ or ‘which’ does not change the meaning of the
sentence, you use ‘which’. You get the drift?
