The Most Common Errors in English Usage and How to Avoid Them

by Elaine Bender

Pages are clean and binding is tight. Solid Book.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, Writing

198 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[J.D. Steens · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are problems with this book. For starters the author first describes English grammar by parts of “speech.” Why “speech”? What about the language we use to read or write? She uses two classification systems, but it’s unclear how these are related when some of the terminology applies to both. A predicate adjective, (“or adjective phrase”), she writes, “modifies the subject,” yet this discussion of a modifier is in the “complement” section and not in the “modifier section” that immediately follows. The distinction between indirect object and object of a preposition is not clear. We know the latter is preceded by a preposition, but when “The engineer gave me the manual” is written, the mind says, really, “The engineer gave the manual TO me. Then there is the jargon. There’s the “nominative absolute” and the objective (“or accusative”) case. And the predicate nominative, Bender writes, is also called the “predicate noun, predicate complement, or subjective complement.” She is giving the reader the various names, but why does English get to have four names for the same thing?

The biggest challenge, though, is Bender’s discussion of verbs. It’s a nightmare, but I’ll limit my comments. Sentences with verbs “put life into the sentence,” she writes. Without verbs “there is no sentence—just a group of words lined up with nothing to do, with no place to go. Give such words a verb, and they spring into action.” But this is not the case with linking verbs (as she notes, forms of “to be,” “no action verbs” and “verbs pertaining to the senses”) that play such a large role in the language. A conceptual discussion about the separate and distinct role of auxiliary/helping verbs would be helpful. But it is buried in the discussion of the "perfect" and "progressive" tenses, and requires a good amount of effort to sort out, at least partially. It’s also interesting that “verb” has such distinctly different forms – one that involves action and one that describes an inactive state or condition (then, there's the blended version: "I am walking," say, which combines an inactive state, "I am" with progressive action "walking").

After going through this Bender book, I’m impressed that non-native English “speakers” are able to learn English. In his book, “The Miracle of Language,” Charlton Laird thinks that English might have the best shot at being a universal language, although he thinks English spelling (we need a “Simplified Spelling Board…for the reform of American spelling”) is the real problem, not English grammar. It’s hard not to wonder whether there’s a better way to teach English grammar as well.*

*Laird argues that teaching English as a language pales in effect compared to what we learn around the home and playground growing up, which also “speaks” to his comment about “usage” and “dialect” having more potency than “correctness.”

[John Missirlian · Rating 3 out of 5]

For me, the book is a handy reference guide to English usage (preference ?! [seems more accurate than rules]) issues, such as plural possessive, or, proper, use, of commas (or parentheses). My hope, and goal, is to make my writing a bit less ambiguous (more proper ?) than my speech. (Transcripts of a few of my unscripted speeches would likely prove this to be a VERY modest goal indeed.)

This book, along with “Fowler’s Modern English Usage” gets me farther, I mean further, to my goal (or should that read, “…closer to …”).

[Marty Greenia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This contained a surprising number of grammar and spelling errors for a book written on how to avoid errors in writing. A lot of the formatting and examples were inconsistent too. Seems like it lacked a thorough editing job.