Grammar mistakes-even the most experienced writers still commit them. That is why there exist editors that polish their work and make authors look beautiful or handsome on the page. Although the relationship is one of love-and-hate, still, their presence in this world, as far as writers are concerned, is indispensable. The fact that humans aren’t perfect is the best reason, which accounts for many of these mistakes, but maybe it is also because people subconsciously adhere to a belief that they are but trivial. Perhaps that is so, but for those, whose bread and butter are words, grammar lapses aren’t so trivial anymore, because it is with their obedience to the grammar rules that writers are judged to be either good or mediocre. For editors, the following are some of aspects of the English grammar that writers should be conscious of.

Verb Phrases

When a verb is with an auxiliary, object, or modifier, it becomes a verb phrase. Lapses happen when the auxiliary verb “to do” is paired with a root verb, in the form of a question in the past tense. In speech, we often say, “She walked to school yesterday.” However, care should be exercised when saying it in the form of a question; otherwise, one will end up asking, “Did she walked to school yesterday?” instead of saying “Did she walk to school yesterday?”, because conventionally, the answer should be “She did walk to school yesterday.” The base form of the verb is assumed under the grammar rules.

Subject-Verb Agreement

In the English grammar, this rule has a lot to do with the singular and plural forms. To avoid violations of the Subject-Verb agreement, the trick is to reduce complex sentences into simple ones, so that that the base subject and verb are identified.

It becomes dicey when several other nouns and adjectives come in between the subject and the verb, or when the noun that serves as a subject becomes a noun phrase. As such, it is important to stay one’s focus on the simple form of the noun, so as not to confuse it with the other words that make up the noun phrase, e.g., “Norman, together with Jonah and Lucy, stays in the house tonight.” The verb takes a singular form, since the sentence becomes “Norman stays in the house tonight,” in its simple form.

When a plural subject is considered to be part of a unit, it agrees with a single, not plural, verb. So, we say, “Three-fourths of the cake is gone,” or “Six from ten leaves four.” The same rule applies for sentences like, “The best part of yesterday’s tea party is the food and the company of friends.

The pronouns another, anybody, anyone, anything, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, no one, nobody, one, somebody, and someone are all singular, because they function in sentences as words that single out. In speech, “each and every one” can be forgiven, but in the written English grammar, the phase that combines two pronouns, albeit grammatically sound, is syntactically redundant.

Author Bio: Go to the official English Grammar website for more grammar lessons, rules, and news for everyday use – http://www.englishgrammar.org/

Category: Education
Keywords: english grammar,grammar rules,school yesterday,certain english grammar,english grammar rules