Grammar Goodies continued
Parallel constructions
Incorrect: The candidate is a former pumpkin tosser, turkey caller, and served three years in a federal prison.
"The candidate is a former . . . served three years in a federal prison" doesn't make sense. Nouns must be matched with nouns and verbs with verbs, etc. The first two elements in this series are nouns; the last element is a separate predicate.
Correct: The candidate is a former pumpkin tosser and turkey caller, and served three years in a federal prison.
Prepositions It's permissible to end a sentence with a preposition:
That's the dragon I threw a barbequed hog to.
Pronoun and antecedent
Unclear: Although Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, were cousins, she signed her death warrant. (Who signed whose death warrant?)
Clear: Although Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, were cousins, Elizabeth signed Mary's death warrant.
Pronouns: me and I
Incorrect: Our Sherpa guide led Hillary and I up Mount Everest.
Correct: Our Sherpa guide led Hillary and me up Mount Everest.
Spelling: twenty-five commonly misspelled words
accommodate acknowledgment argument commitment consensus deductible dependent embarrass existence foreword
harass inadvertent indispensable judgment liaison
license occasion occurrence perseverance prerogative
privilege proceed separate supersede withhold
Subject–verb agreement
Be sure to make the verb agree with the subject when they are separated by other sentence components:
Every plant in my garden, especially the Venus flytraps and triffids, is thriving.
Who/whom/that/which
It was Thomas Jefferson who invented the coat hanger.
Copernicus, whom the Catholic Church condemned as a heretic, was a great scientist.
The atomic bomb that fell on Hiroshima killed about 140,000 people.
The UN official insisted that Iraq, which is in the Middle East, had no weapons of mass destruction.