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Read the text below about mistakes native speakers make when  using English.

 

BAD ENGLISH

 

By Donald Watson

 

“There’s two things I want to draw your attention to.” So said o British Minister of Education a few months ago. (His brief statement contained a grammatical and a stylistic error. Instead of saying, “there’s two things”, he should have said, “There are two things”, and intead of completing the phrase, “I want to draw your attention to,” he should have said, “to wich I want to draw your attention”. As school teachers like to tell their pupils ,  “a preposition in not a  good thing to end a sentence with.”) In the same interview, the infortunate Minister maintaned – when referring to improvements that the government had supposedly made in the education system – “that is things we can be proud of” (as opposed to “these ate things”). What on earth is happening to our language when Ministers of the Crown speak like this?

 

Yet bad English is almost as common as the English language itself. In the case of the inarticulate Education Minister, his main problem was the use of the plural,and in that he is not alone. There are, for exemple, several nouns whose plural forms are a source of confusion. Let’s take the Greek word phenomena: use it witch a singular meaning. The correct singular form is, of course, phenomen. The same mistake is made with the plural criteriam wich should be criterion in the singular.

 

If you hear someone say “this phenomena” or “this criteria,” then you have an indication of their leval of education. Notice anything in that sentence? We start by considering one person (“someone”) and then refer to “their” education. “If anyone says this, there’s no need to correct them.” According to the grammar books, the correct form would be “if anyone says this, the there’s no need to correct him,” but this form says this, then there’s no need to correct him,” but this form is now considered out-of-date- not to mention sexist.

 

Some singular nouns, like family, committee, government and majority, can correctly be used as plurals. “My family send their regards.” “The comittee were all present.” “The cabinet have not able to agree.” It is clear that  in these examples the singular collective noun stands for all the individual members rather than the unit as a whole, and this is the justification for using a plural verb.

 

More or less

 

Plurals can also be a source of confusion when it comes to the use of the word less. Less may be used to qualify adjectives (“my neighbour is less interesting”) and uncountable  nouns (“he earns less money”), but it may not be used with countable nouns (“and he has fewer friends” – not “less friends”). Its opposite more is less problematic and is correct in all three cases: “his wife is more interesting, she earns more money and she more friends.”

 

These kinds of mistake (not mistakes) can house native speakers to argue a great deal. But what about the double negative, the double comparative and the double superlative? The expression, “In don’t want none of that” (as opposed to “I don’t want any of that”), is often heard, and it immediately shows the speaker’s lack of learning. The same goes for pharses like more bigger and most biggest, but we tend to forget that Shakespeare himself was guity of using double comparative the error* “more safer voice” ande THE MERCHANT OF VENICE has the even more famous (or infamous) “most unkindest cut of all.” Such bad grammar would not be tolerated today.

 

Slit infinitives

 

Other standard mistakes made by contemporary English speakers include the use of “different to” instead of “different from” and compared to” instead of ” compared with.” Yet surely the most famous boob is “the infinitive.” This occurs when an adverb divides the word “to” from the rest of the verb’s inifinitive , thereby “splitting” it. One of the best know examples comer from the inftoduction to the TV series STAR TREK. Every week, viewers were told of the Starship Enterprise crew’s intention “to boldly go where no man gone before” or “to go boldly where no man has gone before.” Split infinitives are, however, almost respectable these days, particularly in American English.

 

Not only can adverbs get is the way, they are frequently misused. For this reason, the most concise writers of English (Graham Greene, for example) keep their use to an absolute minimum. One much misused adverb is hopefully, as in “Hoperfully, I’ll be seeing him next week,” It would be more correct to say, “I hope to see him next week”  or “I am hopeful that I Will see him next week,” even if the latter now sounds a little archaic. Indeed it is easy to be pedantic with words like hopefully. According to THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY, “this usage is now such a bugbear to traditionalists that it is best avoided on grounds of civility, if not logic.”

 

Surely the most abused adverb in the English language is literally, which is a great favorite among sports commentators. When an athlete is describle as being “literaly dead on his feet” after a strenuous race, the true meaning of literally is feet” after a strenuous race, the true meaning of literally is being completely ignored. The effect is ridiculous: in the words of Winston Churchill, one Englishman whose command of his native tongue was impeccable, this is the type of English “up whit whinch I will not put.”

 

(adapted from Speak Up, Aug 1993)

 

a) What is the irony in the sentence “a preposition is not a good thing to end a sentence with”?

 

b) Why is the word “more” less problematic than “less” for English speakers?

 

c) Why does the expression “I don’t want none of that” show the speaker’s lack of learning?

 

d) What does the author mean when he says that “Shakespeare himself was guily of  using double comparative and double superlative constructions,”?

 

e) What is the meaning of the word “boob” in “the most famous boob is the slit infinitive.”?

 

f) What does the word “latter” in the sentence “… even the latter now sounds a little archaic.” refer to?

 

g) What should speakers do if they don’t want to misuse adverbs such as “hopefully”?

 

h) What is wrong sports commentators say that an athlete is “literally dead on his feet.?