The Grammar-Us Blog - Grammar-Us

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly I can accumulate an assortment of grammar errors to use in my periodic quizzes! Believe me, I don’t look for them; they just seem to find me! Here are the latest ones. I’ve listed them in all their erroneous glory first, so you can have some fun trying to figure out what is wrong with them. Then, scroll down, and I will reveal the answers.

1. The world’s largest collection of Rococo paintings are housed at the Louvre.

2. And that’s about as best as it gets.

3. They have had it as worse as any other kid in the city of Pittsburgh.

4. My brother and me will not say a word.

5. A lot of people had opinions on how this should have went down.

6. Our kids’ safety come first.

7. We’re trying to be as precautious as we can.

8. Every detective has a degree in mental illness.

9. We make it simple and easy.

10. Our neighborhood is thinking of forming a HOA.


ANSWERS:

1. The world’s largest collection of Rococo paintings are housed at the Louvre. There are some words in the English language that are known as “collective nouns.” These are words that, by their definition, stand for a group of individuals (Examples: collection, group, family). Collective nouns are treated as singular. Therefore, the correct sentence should be: The world’s largest collection of Rococo paintings is housed at the Louvre.

2. And that’s about as best as it gets. The speaker in this sentence has used a superlative in error. The sentence should read: And that’s about as good as it gets.  Alternatively, the speaker could have said: And that’s about the best it gets.

3. They have had it as worse as any other kid in the city of Pittsburgh. This sentence has used the word “worse” when what was really warranted was “bad.” Therefore, the correct sentence should be: They have had it as bad as any other kid in the city of Pittsburgh.

4. My brother and me will not say a word. There is a misuse of a pronoun in this sentence. A good tip for determining whether you need “I” or “me” in a sentence is to take one of the two subjects out and then say the sentence aloud. For example, in this sentence, omit “my brother,” and you can readily see that nobody says, “Me will not say a word.”  Therefore, the correct sentence would be: My brother and I will not say a word.

5. A lot of people had opinions on how this should have went down. Conjugation of irregular verbs such as “go” often cause problems for people. The present perfect tense of “go” is gone. Therefore, this sentence should have been: A lot of people had opinions on how this should have gone down.

6. Our kids’ safety come first. I found it a bit amusing – and a LOT disturbing – that this sentence was actually uttered by the Superintendent of a major city school system! The word “safety” is singular; therefore, the correct sentence should have been: Our kids’ safety comes first.

7. We’re trying to be as precautious as we can. As far as I know, there’s no such word as “precautious,” although you CAN take precautions. Therefore, this sentence should have been: We’re trying to be as cautious as we can.

8. Every detective has a degree in mental illness. This one made me laugh! I do not know of any degrees being handed out for mental illness, but perhaps I am wrong. If so, I do apologize, but in the meantime, I hope this detective’s degree is in psychology, psychiatry, or some other recognized field.

9. We make it simple and easy. This came from a television advertisement for a nationally-known office supply store. I think, perhaps, that they needed to fill a couple of seconds of air time and chose this way to do it. However, since “simple” and “easy” are synonymous, they might have spent their advertising dollars more prudently by not being redundant.  

10. Our neighborhood is thinking of forming a HOA. When you have a word that begins with a vowel, the article preceding it should be “an” and not “a.” Similarly, when you use initials, and the name of the letter begins with a vowel (such as “aitch” in the example sentence), you need to use “an.” Therefore, the correct sentence should have been: Our neighborhood is thinking of forming an HOA.