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It’s time once again for me to empty my “blooper basket” and challenge you with the top ten grammar gaffs I read or overheard during the past couple of weeks. First, I will quote them, verbatim, and you can have fun discerning exactly what is wrong with each sentence. Then, if you keep scrolling down to the end of this post, I’ll reveal the answers. Have fun!
1. Scarlett was cohorsed to do this.
2. This is all the closer he’s getting to it.
3. There were a cluster of storms that popped up.
4. Action sculptures your life.
5. Walter thinks he might’ve saw something.
6. Alls you have to do is login to our website.
7. She just turned one years old.
8. My heart’s broke!
9. None of this would have came out if he had kept his mouth shut.
10. I ain’t kilt nobody, man!
ANSWERS:
1. Scarlett was cohorsed to do this. Assuming that Scarlett was under some kind of duress, I believe what this speaker was actually trying to say is that she was coerced. A good rule of thumb: It’s never a good idea to try to impress someone with your vocabulary, if you don’t actually know the correct vocabulary word! This speaker could just as easily have said, “Scarlett was forced to do this,” thus getting her point across without sounding like an idiot in the process.
2. This is all the closer he’s getting. “Closer” is a word of comparison. In this sentence, there is nothing to compare to it. To be correct, the writer should have stated, “This is as close as he’s getting.”
3. There were a cluster of storms that popped up. It is a common mistake, when a descriptive phrase is added to the subject of a sentence, that the speaker will lose track of what the actual subject of the sentence is. In this example, the subject of the sentence is cluster. It is a collective noun, and as such, it is treated as singular. The phrase “of storms” describes the cluster. The correct sentence should have been, “There was a cluster of storms that popped up.”
4. Action sculptures your life. A sculpture is a thing (noun), not a verb. The correct verb form is sculpt; therefore, the correct sentence should have been: "Action sculpts your life."
5. Walter thinks he might’ve saw something. Sometimes, I have to resist the urge to tattoo the correct forms of the verb “see” onto people’s foreheads! “Might’ve” is the past perfect, in contraction form, of “might have.” Therefore, the correct verb form of “see” should be seen. The correct sentence should have been, “Walter thinks he might’ve seen something.”
6. Alls you have to do is login to our website. The word “all” is already plural! It does not need an “s” added to it. Additionally, “login” written as one word is a noun, not a verb. It should be separated into two words if the speaker intends to use it as a verb. Therefore, all this speaker needed to say to be correct was, “All you have to do is log in to our website.”
7. She just turned one years old. Here we go again! The child to whom the speaker refers in this sentence apparently just celebrated her first birthday. ONE is singular; therefore, “year” should be, also! The correct sentence should be: “She just turned one year old.”
8. My heart’s broke! As sorry as I feel for this poor, lovelorn speaker, my sympathy was tempered by the “fingernails-
9. None of this would have came out if he had kept his mouth shut. Another imperfect use of the perfect tense is evident in this sentence. The correct conjugation of the verb “to come” in the past perfect tense is “have come.” Ergo, the correct sentence would have been: “None of this would have come out if he had kept his mouth shut.”
10. I ain’t kilt nobody, man! The speaker, the prime suspect in a murder investigation, would have been in a heap of trouble if the Grammar Police were judging him! I perhaps could find him “not guilty” of using “ain’t” in his sentence, since Webster’s Dictionary now recognizes it as a legitimate word meaning “am not, are not, is not, have not, has not, do not, does not, did not.” However, I find it harder not to judge him harshly for using the word “kilt,” which is a type of dress associated with Scotsmen and not the past tense of “kill.” Also, I wonder if the suspect realizes that he actually admitted to the accusation, by virtue of the fact that he employed a double negative. If he did not kill NObody, then he must have killed SOMEbody! Bottom line: He could have helped his case much more if had said, “I didn’t kill anybody, man!”