WEEK 1

Overview of Grammar: Deviant Usage

and Common Errors
Adika (2011); Bailey (2015, pages 142-146)

UGRC 210: ACADEMIC WRITING II

College of Education
LANGUAGE CENTRE, COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES
School of Continuing and Distance Education
UNIVERSITY OF GHANA
2018
 DEVIANT USAGE AND COMMON ERRORS

 The use of words and expressions that depart

from accepted practice. When such wrong
usage become persistent the quality of your
writing suffers.
 This lecture seeks to draw your attention to
such errors with the view to helping you to
avoid them.
 Outline
• Misplaced modifiers
• Dangling modifiers
• Comma splices
• Split infinities
• Pronoun-antecedent agreement
• Rambling sentences
• Double subject
• Sentence fragments
• Parallel structures
• Subject-verb agreement
• Confusing words
 Misplaced modifiers
• A misplaced modifier is a word, phrase or clause that
is improperly separated from the word it modifies or
describes.
• Simply put, a word or a phrase apparently modifying
an unintended word because of its placement in a
sentence.
• Sentences with this error often sound awkward and
confusing.
 Example:
• E.g.1) On her way home, Akosua found a gold man’s
watch.

• The sentence above would suggest that a gold man

owns a watch.

• Misplaced modifiers are usually corrected by moving

the modifier to a more appropriate place in the
sentence, generally next to the word it modifies.
 Example:
• E.g. 2) On her way home, Akosua found a man’s gold
watch.
• The modifier ‘gold’ has now been placed next to the
word it modifies, that is ‘watch’.
• We can now say the modifier has been correctly
placed.
 There are several kinds of misplaced
modifiers.
• Misplaced adjectives

• Misplaced adverbs

• Misplaced phrases

• Misplaced clauses
 Misplaced adjectives
• They are incorrectly separated from the nouns they
modify and almost always distort the intended
meaning.

• E.g. 3) Kweku ate a cold dish of cereal for breakfast.

• The word ‘cold’ is a misplaced adjective that modifies
the noun ‘dish’.
 Correction
• The error of a misplaced adjective is corrected by
placing the adjective next to the noun it modifies.
• E.g. 4) Kweku ate a bowl of cold cereal for breakfast.
• The word ‘cold’ is now a correctly placed adjective
that modifies ‘cereal’.
• Sentences like these are common in everyday speech.
 Placement of adverbs
• Wrongly placed adverbs in a sentence can change the
meaning of the sentence.

• E.g. 5) We ate the lunch that we bought slowly.

(incorrect)
• This sentence suggests that ‘we bought lunch slowly’.
 Placement of adverbs (correction)
• To correct the meaning, move the adverb ‘slowly’
near or next to the verb ‘ate’.

• E.g. 6) We slowly ate the lunch we bought. (correct)

• Watch out for adverbs such as only, just, nearly, and

almost. They are often misplaced and cause an
unintended meaning.
 Misplaced phrases
• This may cause a sentence to sound awkward and
may create a meaning that does not make sense.
• E.g. 7) Adwoa sold the food to ‘the customer with
fresh meat’.
• This sentence implies that the customer has a skin
made of fresh meat or…
• To clarify the meaning, put the phrase next to the
noun they are supposed to modify.
 Misplaced phrases (correction)
• E.g. 8) Adwoa sold the ‘food with fresh meat’ to the
customer.

• The dealer sold the Cadillac to ‘the buyer with leather

seats’. (incorrect)

• The dealer sold ‘the cadillac with leather seats’ to the

buyer. (correct)
 Dangling modifiers
• When a modifier occurs without the item that it
modifies, it is referred to as a dangling modifier.
• That is, the item to be modified is missing from the
clause or sentence.
 Dangling modifiers
• E.g. 9) When nine years old, my mother enrolled in
medical school.
 ‘When nine years old’ is a dangling modifier.

• Eg 10) Walking to the movies, the cloudburst

drenched Jim.
 This sentence suggests that ‘the cloudburst is walking
to the movies’ even though a possible walker Jim is
mentioned.
How to correct dangling modifiers.
• Dangling modifiers can be corrected in two general
ways.
Correction method 1
• Leave the modifier as it is.
• Change the main part of the sentence so that it
begins with the term actually modified.
• This change will put the modifier next to the term it
modifies.
 Dangling modifiers
• E.g. 11) Walking to the movies, the cloudburst
drenched Jim. (incorrect)
• E.g. 12) Walking to the movies, Jim was drenched by
the cloudburst. (correct)
 Dangling modifiers
Correction method 2
• Change the dangling modifier phrase to a
subordinate clause, creating a subject and verb.
• Leave the rest of the sentence as it is.

• E.g. 13) When nine years old, my mother enrolled in

medical school. (incorrect)
• E.g. 14) When I was nine years old, my mother
enrolled in medical school.(correct)
 Comma splices
• Two sentences or independent clauses that are
incorrectly joined by a comma.

• E.g. 15) The internet has made the world smaller, you
can meet people everywhere.
Three options for comma splice revision
• A) Use a comma and a coordinating conjunction
(and, or, nor, so, yet etc.).
• E.g. 16) The internet has made the world smaller, so
you can meet people everywhere.

• B) Use a semicolon.
• E.g. 17) The internet has made the world smaller; you
can meet people everywhere.
 Comma splices ( continuation)
• C) Treat the clauses as separate sentences.
• E.g. 18) The internet has made the world smaller.
You can meet people everywhere.
 Split infinitives
• A split infinitive is a grammatical construction in
which a word or phrase divides the to and the bare
infinitive verb.
• The infinitive of a verb is the form given in the
dictionary where no specific subject is indicated. In
English, it is always characterized by the word ‘to’.
E.g., to play, to bribe, to eat, to find, to laugh.
 Split infinitives (continuation)
• A split infinitive occurs when the ‘to’ is separated
from its verb by other words.
• Usually, it is sufficient to move the offending word so
it comes either before or after the infinitive.
• E.g. 19) Kwame’s teacher told him to never look back.
(incorrect)
• E.g. 20) Kwame’s teacher told him never to look back.
(correct)
 Split infinitives examples
• E.g. 21) She told me I had to quickly finish the
sandwich. (incorrect)
• E.g. 22) she told me I had to finish the sandwich
quickly. (correct)
• E.g. 23) I was told to always pay attention in class.
(incorrect)
• E.g. 24) I was told always to pay attention in class.
(correct)
 Clear pronoun reference
• A pronoun is a word used to stand for or take the
place of a noun.
• A pronoun should refer clearly to one, unmistakable
noun coming before the pronoun. This is called
pronoun antecedent.
• It is very easy to create a sentence that uses a
pronoun without a clear, unmistakable noun
antecedent.
 Clear pronoun reference (E.g.)
• E.g. 25) After putting the disk in the cabinet, Kwame
sold it.
• The pronoun ‘it’ does not have a clear noun
antecedent.
• As a result, the reader cannot know for sure whether
Kwame sold the disk or the cabinet.
• Such errors, called faulty or vague pronoun reference
can confuse readers and obscure intended meaning.
 Clear pronoun reference
• There are three major pronoun reference errors:
 Too many antecedents

 Hidden antecedents

 No antecedent at all.
 Too many antecedents
• A pronoun should have only one antecedent. The
antecedent should be clear and unmistakable.
• E.g. 25) Take the radio out of the car and fix it.
• Anyone who reads this sentence would not know
exactly which item to be fixed.
• In the above example, faulty or vague pronoun
reference occurs because the pronoun ‘it’ has two
possible noun antecedents.
 Too many antecedents
To fix the problem:
 A) Substitute a noun for the pronoun and
 B) Rephrase the sentence.

• E.g. 26) Take the radio out of the car and fix the
radio.
Or
• E.g. 27) Take the radio out of the car and fix the car.
 Hidden antecedents
• Faulty pronoun reference errors also occur when the
pronoun’s antecedent functions as an adjective
rather than a noun.
• In such cases, the true antecedent is hidden or
obscured from the reader because it has been
subordinated to another noun.
 Hidden antecedents (E.g.)
• E.g. 28) The fufu dish was empty, but we were tired
of eating it anyway.

• We might think that the fufu dish was being eaten

because ‘dish’ appears to be the antecedent for the
pronoun ‘it’.

• E.g. 29) The fufu dish was empty, but we were tired
of eating fufu anyway.
 Pronoun antecedents
• A pronoun can fall either before or after the noun it
refers to. If the pronoun comes afterward, the noun
it refers to is called the antecedent. The antecedent
of any sentence must be clear for readers to easily
comprehend.
Errors relating to pronoun antecedents.
• Ambiguous pronouns

• Absent antecedents

• Loose antecedents
 Ambiguous pronouns
• One error is using a pronoun when the antecedent is
unclear.
• E.g. 30) Akosua discussed the new strategy with Jill.
She decided to proceed as planned. Who decided to
proceed as planned?

• E.g. 31) After she discussed the new strategy with Jill,
Akosua decided to proceed as planned.
 Absent antecedents
• E.g. 32) Kojo says the course is fun to teach because
it’s small, and they are motivated.
• ‘they’ presumably refers to students, but the
antecedent noun is absent.
• E.g. 33) Kojo says the course is fun to teach, because
it’s small and the students are motivated. (correct)
 Loose antecedents
• A common pronoun reference error is having a
pronoun such as ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘it’ or ‘which’, referring
loosely to an idea expressed, rather than to a specific
noun.
• E.g. 34) The company concealed financial losses. This
caused investors to damp the stock.
• E.g. 35) The company concealed financial losses. That
caused investors to dump the stock.
 Loose antecedents
• E.g. 36) The company concealed financial losses. It
caused investors to dump the stock.
• In these sentences, note the lack of specific
antecedent noun for ‘this’, ‘that’, and ‘it’
• Corrected.
• The company concealed financial losses. This
accounting fraud caused investors to dump the stock.
• The pronoun ‘this’ clearly refers to the noun ‘fraud’.
 Rambling sentences
• Rambling sentences are sentences that contain
several clauses connected by coordinating
conjunctions such as ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘but’, ‘yet’, ‘nor’, and
‘so’.
• A rambling sentence may appear to follow the
technical rules of grammar but the sentence as a
whole is wrong because it rambles or runs-on.
 Rambling sentences
• E.g. 37) I wanted to eat fried rice but I realised that
my money wasn’t enough so I thought about buying
yam but then I realised that I didn’t feel like eating
yam but I felt like eating rice so I walked back to my
hostel for some money and I then realised that I had
left my key in school so I was confused so I was very
hungry and I didn’t know what to do.
 Rambling sentences
• Rambling sentences as we saw above are exceedingly
long and contain too many independent clauses.
• The purpose of a sentence is to state a single idea or
a small set of related ideas.
• A rambling sentence states many ideas.
Correction.
 Take out all the coordinating conjunctions that
separate complete, distinct thoughts and then
replace them with periods.
 Double subjects
Sentences that contain double subjects
• This error is mostly committed in our speech
language.
• E.g. 38) My hometown it is very big.
• In this sentence, ‘it’ is a pronoun which represents
‘my hometown’
• It is not correct to use both in the sentence.
• E.g. 39) My hometown is very big.
 Double subjects (Other examples)
• E.g. 40) My sister she is a nurse. (incorrect)
• E.g. 41) My sister is a nurse. (correct)

• E.g. 42) The mountains we visited them were

beautiful. (incorrect)
• E.g. 43) The mountains we visited were beautiful.
(correct)
 Sentence fragments
• Sentence fragment refers to a group of words that
looks like a sentence, but is not. To qualify as a
sentence, a group of words needs to have at least
one independent clause.
• An independent clause is any group of words that
contains both a subject and a verb and can stand on
its own.
• Sentence fragments never have independent clauses,
but have dependent clauses or phrases.
 Sentence fragment
• They can look like real sentences because they begin
with a capital letter and end with a period.
• Fragments do not form a complete thought.
• A sentence fragment is like having only half of the
pieces to a puzzle. Without all the pieces, you will
not have the whole picture.
 Sentence fragment
Where they are found
• They usually appear before or after the independent
clauses to which they belong.
• E.g. 44) When we got in the car. We rolled down the
window.
• ‘When we got in the car’ is a sentence fragment; it is
dependent on the independent clause that follows it.
 Sentence fragment
Correction:
• E.g. 45) When we got in the car, we rolled down the
window. (correct)
 Subject-verb agreement
• One important rule to remember when forming
sentences is to make subjects and verbs agree.
• While this seems like an apparent or obvious rule, it
is often overlooked.
• We will discuss simple rules for remembering how
subjects and verbs should agree.
 Subject-verb agreement
 1) A singular subject always takes a singular verb. Use
either the –s or –es ending of the present tense of a
verb when the subject is in the third person.
• E.g. 46) The cat plays with the toy.
• E.g. 47) The girl wishes for a doll on her birthday.
 Subject-verb agreement
 2) A plural subject always takes a plural verb.
• E.g. 48) The dogs play in the yard.

 When using compound subjects, a plural verb is used

with a compound subject.
• E.g. 49) A dog and a cat are usually enemies.
 Subject-verb agreement
 An exception to the rule above is when the
compound subject conveys a singular idea.
• E.g. 50) The athletic trainer and graduate student is
Bill Smith.
 When the compound subject contains ‘or’, ‘nor’,
‘neither...nor’, ‘not…but’, ‘not only…but also’, make
the verb agree in number and in person with the
nearer subject.
 Subject-verb agreement
• E.g. 51) Neither the windows nor the door needs to
be painted.
• E.g. 52) Not the builder but the maids clean the
house.
 3) Verbs always agree with the subject in the
sentence even if there is a phrase or clause between
them.
• E.g. 53) The trees as well as the shrubbery are losing
their leaves.
 Subject-verb agreement
• E.g. 54)The doctor in addition to his nurses has the
night off.
• E.g. 55) The farmer along with the cows rises early.
 4) There are two rules to remember when referring
to groups.
• Use a singular verb when the subject is a collective
noun which is referring to the group as a unit. Such
collective nouns name a group or class:
congregation, flock, jury, family.
 Subject-verb agreement
• E.g. 56) The congregation is made up of Christians.
 An exception is made when using scissors or trousers
which both take a plural verb except when used after
‘pair’
• E.g. 57) The scissors are on the table.
• E.g. 58) The pair of scissors is blunt.
 Subject-verb agreement
 5) When using indefinite pronouns, use singular
verbs. Such indefinite pronouns include: anybody,
anyone, each, either, everybody, everyone, neither,
somebody.
• E.g. 59) Everyone in the room smells the disgusting
odour.
• E.g. 60) Neither was charged with the crime.
 Parallel structure/parallelism
• The balance of two or more elements in a sentence
• Elements in a sentence are parallel when one
construction (or one part of speech) matches
another: a phrase and a phrase, a clause and a
clause, a verb and a verb, a noun and a noun and so
forth.
 Parallel constructions
Parallel structures or constructions occur with
coordinating conjunctions. (and, or, nor, but, yet)
Parallel constructions:
• E.g. 61) At University of Ghana, cheating can result in
suspension or even expulsion from school.
Underlying Structure: At University of Ghana, cheating
can result in (noun) or even (noun) from school.
 Parallel constructions with coordinating
conjunctions

Non parallel structures:

• E.g. 62) At University of Ghana, cheating can result in
suspension or even be expelled from school.

• Underlying structure: At University of Ghana,

cheating can result in (noun) or even (verb phrase)
 Parallel constructions with correlative
conjunctions
• Correlative conjunctions (e.g.: either/or, neither/nor,
not only/but also, both/and, whether/or)
Not parallel:
• E.g. 63) Selasi is not only very beautiful but also is
very intelligent.
• The words very beautiful directly follow not only, so
very intelligent should follow but also. Repeating the
extra verb creates an unbalanced effect.
 Parallel constructions with correlative
conjunctions

Parallel construction:
• E.g. 64) Selasi is not only very beautiful but also very
intelligent.
 Parallel construction in a series
Not parallel:
• E.g. 65) The two girls enjoyed dancing, swimming
and going to the mall.

• Underlying structure: The two girls enjoyed (noun),

(noun), and (verb phrase).
 Parallel construction in series
Parallel:
• E.g. 66) The two girls enjoyed dancing, swimming
and shopping.

• Underlying structure: The two girls enjoyed (noun),

(noun) and (noun).
 Three-step method to parallelism
• What part of speech is being used? Is it a noun, a
verb or a phrase?

• In what form or tense does the part of speech exist?

• How can I convert the items in the sentence into the

grammatical format?
 Confusing words
Words that sound confusing
• Examples
 A) Accept / Except
• Accept is a verb meaning to receive.
• Except is usually a preposition that denotes exclusion.
 B) Affect / Effect
• Affect is a verb that means to influence
• Effect is either a noun meaning result or it is a verb
meaning to bring about.
 Confusing words (continuation)
• Farther / further
• Farther usually describes distance.
• Further suggests a quantity or degree.
• Fewer / less
• Fewer refers to items that can be counted.
• Less refers to items that cannot be counted.
 Confusing words (continuation)
 Who’s / whose
• Who’s is a contraction of ‘who is’.
• Whose is a possession pronoun.
 Your / you’re
• Your is possessive
• You’re is a contraction of ‘you are’.
 Loose / lose
• Loose is an adjective meaning ‘not secure’.
• Lose is a verb meaning the opposite of win. Lose also
means ‘misplace’.
 REFERENCES
• Adika, G. S. K. (2011). Deviant usage and confusing
words. Accra: Black Mask.
• Quirk, R. & Greenbaum, S. (1973). A university
grammar of English. Longman.
• http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills/learningoral
• http://people.ucsc.edu/~pullum/goldenrules.html
• http://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/howtotalk.pdf