COMMON ERRORS IN GRAMMAR
 

TYPE OF ERROR	EXAMPLE	DISCUSSION
Noun Agreement Error	France and Italy are a country in Europe.	Consistency is a key factor in sentence craft. Nouns must agree in number with the subject to which they pertain.
Subject-Verb Agreement Error	The students from Ms. Mesa’s class is competing in the Science Quiz Bee.	Use a singular verb with a singular subject, and a plural verb with a plural subject. The key to seeing subject-verb agreement errors is to correctly identify the subject first.
Antecedent Agreement Error	Jack was late, so the group left without them. In this case, them incorrectly refers to Jack, which is singular-masculine.	Pronoun agreement errors are as common as noun-verb agreement errors. The number (singular or plural) of a pronoun must agree with its antecedent (the noun or subject to which it refers.)
Ambiguous Pronoun Reference	Jane, June and Joanne applied, and she got the job. Iñigo and his cousin Theo entered the Marathon, but he got disqualified because of an injury. (Who is he?)	A pronoun must agree in number or gender with the word it stands for. When there are more than one subject or noun in a sentence, any pronoun used must have a clear reference.
Change of Pronoun Subjects	One needs a calculator, and you should also bring two pens during the test.	We classify pronouns into three grammatical persons: first, second, and third person points of view. Although it is possible that a sentence will refer to more than one person, in sentences where the change of person isn’t a part of the meaning, the pronouns should be consistent
Wrong Pronoun	Jim is the author that gave a career talk in the class.	Given a choice among who, which, or that, use who when the antecedent is a single human being or a group of individuals. Use that or which for inanimate nouns or subjects.
Adjective and Adverb Error	No matter how attentive Mark focuses on his work, he still finds it hard to finish on time.	Adjectives modify nouns and pronouns; adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs.
Comparative Adjective Error	Among the seven medicinal brands, brand Y is the better	Adjectives have three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative, and superlative. When it is clear that only two are compared, use a comparative, not a superlative adjective. When the comparison involves more than two nouns, use the superlative degree.
Dangling Modifier	Flowing from the mountain top, he drank from the stream.	Dangling modifiers are phrases that have nothing to modify. They most frequently occur at the beginning of the sentence and are usually verbals: participles, gerunds, and infinitives.
Misplaced Modifier	Sarah saw her friend, Alex, with a Great Dane in an afro	The modifier must be positioned beside or closest to the words it modifies.
Double Negative	There is hardly no coffee left in the pot.	It’s hard to miss the double negative in a sentence. The errors are much less obvious with other negative adverbs such as hardly, scarcely, seldom, and rarely. The general rule is to use only one negative adverb, or use it with a positive quantifier.
Faulty Comparison	Grades for this semester were much lower than last semester. (The phrase those of must be inserted after than to complete the comparison.)	Comparison should be made only between or among similar items. Relevant words should not be omitted to preserve the original thought.
Verb Tense Sequence Error	He rang the bell, opened the door, and enters the house.	Each verb has a number, person, voice, and tense. Number is simply singularity or plurality of a subject or noun. The three persons of a verb are first, second, and third.  The voices are active and passive. (If the subject of a verb performs the action, the verb is active; if the subject receives the action, the verb is passive). The tenses of the verb are the forms that show the time of its action or state of being (simple, progressive or perfect). Remember that consistency is vital. The elements mentioned above must agree with the concerned parts of a sentence.
Verb Tense Error	She is singing when the lights went out.
Change of Voice of Verb	He runs a mile daily, and weights are lifted by him.
Verb Form Error	He has drove from Manila to Olongapo with a record-breaking speed and time.
Sentence Fragment	When the judge read the final verdict.	A complete sentence must be an independent clause; that is, it must have a subject and a verb and can stand alone as a complete sentence.
Comma Splice	She has three sisters, two of them are doctors.	Punctuation marks have their own specific function in a sentence. The following are the fundamentals you should know: a.)      comma: used for enumerations and cues to indicate the use of subordinate conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs (ex. however, frequently, etc.), or other introductory phrases or modifiers b.)      period: used to signal a full stop in a sentence. semicolon: used to separate two independent clauses  meant to be combined into one sentence.
Faulty Parallelism	He is studying scuba diving, can, being, and how to swim.	When two elements of a sentence are similar in meaning, you should express them in parallel form. In other words, all linked words should match in form.  Common parallelism errors: unnecessary shifts in verb tenses, unnecessary shifts from an active to a passive verb, unnecessary shifts in person, and parallelism errors in a list or series
Diction Error	The affects of sleep deprivation are unfavorable  to a person’s health.	The cause of a diction error, or the choice of the wrong word, is not knowing exactly what certain words mean. Obviously, the more words you know, the fewer diction errors you will make. The words used in scholastic tests are rarely difficult or obscure. They are most likely to be words we all know, but confuse with words that look or sound similar.
Idiom Error: Choice of Preposition	They are in support to the idea.	Most of the idiom problems arise from the use of prepositions. Since prepositions are often short words, it is easy to miss any such idiom error if sentences are read carelessly.
Idiom Error: Choice of Conjunction	He is as cunning than a fox.	Conjunctions join ideas by linking grammatical structures. The different kinds of conjunctions, must be mastered in order to construct sentences correctly and to express ideas in the most effective way.
Wordiness	Because of the fact that he failed to give total and complete attention, he missed the exit.	Verbosity, or unnecessary wordiness, is the most common stylistic weakness. In choosing between two grammatically correct sentences, choose the sentence which is less verbose.