Five Common Mistakes of English

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Saturday, 10 June 2017

1. Misplaced apostrophes

Apostrophes aren’t difficult to use once you know how, but putting them in the wrong place is one of the most common grammar mistakes in the English language. Many people use an apostrophe to form the plural of a word, particularly if the word in question ends in a vowel, which might make the word look strange with an S added to make it plural.

The rules:

  • Apostrophes indicate possession – something belonging to something or someone else.
  • To indicate something belonging to one person, the apostrophe goes before the ‘s’. For instance, “The girl’s horse.”
  • To indicate something belonging to more than one person, put the apostrophe after the ‘s’. For example, “The girls’ horse.”
  • Apostrophes are also used to indicate a contracted word. For example, “don’t” uses an apostrophe to indicate that the word is missing the “o” from “do not”.
  • Apostrophes are never used to make a word plural, even when a word is in number form, as in a date.

How not to do it:

  • The horse’s are in the field
  • Pen’s for sale
  • In the 1980’s
  • Janes horse is over there
  • The girls dresses are ready for them to collect

How to do it properly:

  • The horses are in the field
  • Pens for sale
  • In the 1980s
  • We didn’t want to do it
  • Jane’s horse is over there
  • The girls’ dresses are ready for them to collect


2. Your/you’re

We covered this one before in our post on homophones, but it’s such a widespread problem that there’s no harm in covering it again.

The rules:

  • “Your” indicates possession – something belonging to you.
  • “You’re” is short for “you are”.

How not to do it:

  • Your beautiful
  • Do you know when your coming over?
  • Can I have one of you’re biscuits?

How to do it properly:

  • You’re beautiful
  • Do you know when you’re coming over?
  • Can I have one of your biscuits?


3. Its/it’s

We said earlier that apostrophes should be used to indicate possession, but there is one exception to this rule, and that is the word “it”. Unsurprisingly, this exception gets lots of people confused.

The rules:

  • “It’s” is only ever used when short for “it is”.
  • “Its” indicates something belonging to something that isn’t masculine or feminine (like “his” and “hers”, but used when you’re not talking about a person).
  • If it helps, remember that inanimate objects can’t really possess something in the way a human can.

How not to do it:

  • Its snowing outside
  • The sofa looks great with it’s new cover

How to do it properly:

  • It’s snowing outside
  • The sofa looks great with its new cover


4. “Could/would/should of”

This common mistake arises because the contracted form of “could have” – “could’ve” – sounds a bit like “could of” when you say it out loud. This mistake is made frequently across all three of these words.

The rules:

  • When people write “should of”, what they really mean is “should have”.
  • Written down, the shortened version of “should have” is “should’ve”.
  • “Should’ve” and “Should have” are both correct; the latter is more formal.

How not to do it:

  • We could of gone there today
  • I would of done it sooner
  • You should of said

How to do it properly:

  • We could’ve gone there today
  • I would have done it sooner
  • You should’ve said


5. There/their/they’re

We’ve met this one before, too; it’s another example of those pesky homophones – words that sound the same but have different meanings.

The rules:

  • Use “there” to refer to a place that isn’t here – “over there”.
  • We also use “there” to state something – “There are no cakes left.”
  • “Their” indicates possession – something belonging to them.
  • “They’re” is short for “they are”.

How not to do it:

  • Their going to be here soon
  • We should contact they’re agent
  • Can we use there boat?
  • Their is an argument that says

How to do it properly:

  • They’re going to be here soon
  • We should contact their agent
  • Can we use their boat?
  • There is an argument that says

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