Copyblogger and BlueGlass have created this awesome infographic with some common grammar mistakes, and how to avoid them. Enjoy!
My children’s book, Runaway Smile, is mercifully free of grammar goofs. Don’t believe me? Read it for free and find out for yourself!
Nicholas C. Rossis 
Cute! Those grammar mistakes make me crazy. I want to take a red pen to my laptop screen when I see people post stuff like that on Facebook.
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Lol – I think after a couple of hours on Facebook, you won’t be able to see anything but red on the screen! 😀
Thanks and welcome 🙂
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Reblogged this on Books and More.
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Very good hints. Now I understand this effect/affect thingy… 😉
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It’s a tough one, that one 🙂
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Very cute, and useful.
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Thanks! Now you know why I had to share 🙂
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Sometimes there are things that demand it. This is one of them. 😀
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Reblogged this on graemecummingdotnet and commented:
Nicholas Rossis produces some really informative stuff on his blog. But this has a few laughs attached to it as well. Enjoy…
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#4 always drives me nuts. Very useful infographic.
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Lol – there’s always one that does. Thanks! 🙂
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These mistakes just keep on coming. They drive me nuts. Love the infographic. 😛
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Now you know why I had to share! 🙂
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Can’t share this too many times. 🙂
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I feel like a grammar Nazi when I’m reading. I cringe, but let slide, when I read these things on Facebook or Twitter. But when I read them in blogs, I assume their book won’t be any better. It makes me sad.
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Lol – even so, we screw up. That’s why I always use a small army of beta-readers, plus a professional proofreader… 🙂
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Reblogged this on Julie Lawford and commented:
As a fully paid-up member of the Grammar Police, I loved this!
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#7 is the one that gets my ire stirred.
I almost “literally” laugh when I see or hear people, even in movies or on the news, try to sound “civilized” by using “I” instead of “me” when the two-letter word would not only sound better, but also be more socially acceptable. Well, maybe the new Socialites would go for it, but then again, they would just as well like to disregard this entire infographic.
And how about those who post really long sentences? (Yes, like the one in my previous paragraph.)
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The I vs. me is very simple if you speak a language that uses nominative and accusative (the same is true of who vs whom). English doesn’t really, hence the problem. It’s all about a bunch of scribes shoehorning English into Latin grammar.
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Well, as any Brit can attest; I speak “American” not “English”.
Our language evolves way too often, and words that have a particular meaning now might have a completely different definition in 10 or 20 years. Just look at the word “gay”. As recently as the ’50’s, it only meant “having or showing a merry, lively mood” and now, even the first two in the list are about homosexual desires. The word for cigarette for the British is “fag” and that has been the source of much amusement for at least as long as I have had a (shoddy) memory.
Spoken Language is in a constant flux.
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Indeed, it’s fascinating. Fag in particular has a sorry history, as it comes from the word “faggot,” defined by dictionary.com as “a bundle of sticks or twigs, esp when bound together and used as fuel”. As homosexuals were burned at stake, the term “bring the faggots” gradually took the meaning attributed today.
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
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Reblogged this on Have We Had Help? and commented:
Pay attention!!!
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Fantastic information, thank you so much. I’ve save this, and will ever revert to it when writing.
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Glad you found it useful – and welcome 🙂
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Very clever and useful infographic.
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Thanks and welcome. Yes, they’ve done a great job 🙂
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Great examples.
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Glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
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Reblogged this on Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life and commented:
A very useful infographic from Nicholas Rossis – the little grammatical errors that creep in and make you look bad…
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They’re so obvious and I know every one of them – but they’re also invisible when they happen! That’s my downfall.
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Alas, yours and every author’s! 😀 Hence my love of beta-readers – and, of course, my proofreader.
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Reblogged this on cornfedcontessa and commented:
Great info! Thanks for sharing!
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The trick is realizing when you’ve goofed. I have one heck of a hard time withb”its” and “it’s” — not because I don’t know when to use them but because that silly apostrophe keeps sneaking its way in there somehow.
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Lol – happens to the best of us. Thanks for the comment and welcome 🙂
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Reblogged this on Jeanne Owens, author.
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Nicholas,
Number eleven is news to me. Thank you for this interesting post.
I remember being taught in school that if writing a number below 100, it shouldn’t be written numerically. How do you feel about that? Also, what’s your thought on the phrase ‘how come?’ And should I have put that question mark in or out of the ‘ ? (I’m okay that I started that sentence with the word and. 😉 )
I appreciate your input if you have the time, especially about the ‘how come’ as I have asked many a teacher and never gotten an answer that I felt was satisfactory. Thanks and good night.
Melissa
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Lol – thanks and welcome. The key to English is simple: be consistent. For every person/resource that will swear the correct way is such-and-such, there will inevitably be a dozen more who will disagree. How can it be otherwise, with dozens of style guides published across the globe, and at least three main branches of English?
I’ve learned to expect this, and that the secret is to be consistent in whatever stylistic choices you make. So, to answer your questions, personally I’m fine with “how come.” I would put the question mark before the quote, as you have, and I, too, wouldn’t mind starting with an “and.” 😉
As for numbers, I write numerically numbers above (and including) 13.
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I mostly am wide open, love the flexibility of words and the individuality it allows to shine through a person, buuuut I find ‘how come’ a bit scratchy on my ears/eyes. I would love to know it’s origin and perhaps I would be more open to it.
I’ve never been made aware of any other steadfast rules with numbers. It’s amazing how that lesson at age 13 stuck with me. To each his own on that one (or with consideration of the person to whom you are writing 😉 ).
Thanks for all the advice and opinions.
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Reblogged this on chrismcmullen and commented:
A must for writers with great visual presentation. 🙂
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I definitely see these happen far too often (and are especially cringe worthy when I come across them in my own work). But there is one that isn’t on the list that is just as annoying – “past” vs “passed”.
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That’s just plain wrong 🙂
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Reblogged this on The Happy Lifeaholic and commented:
How many of these mistakes do you make? 🙂
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Love this presentation! Makes me pay more attention to obvious grammar mistakes. Thanks “teach” for the fun lesson. Christine
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Lol – a pleasure. My problem is that, despite knowing all of these, I still make mistakes 😀
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Me too! Most of the time it’s to the Webster’s I go. Or the stack of grammar/copyediting resource books. LOL…Christine
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Practice and practise is another one – but American English smartly did away with the latter because it was too confusing! Now Aussies are stuck in the middle 😉
I know one’s a noun and the other’s a verb, but so few people notice when you get them mixed up.
I’m pinning this infograph!
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Ooh, that’s another good one. Thanks! 😀
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Reblogged this on Flights of Fancy and commented:
Adi, the Happy Lifeaholic reblogged this on her blog, but I felt compelled to reblog it, too, because I find it so useful. If you try to learn a foreign language, things like that help a lot. I feel comfortable with most of these examples. What makes trouble for me is the I, Me, Myself thing which I still don’t fully understand. Dangling participles, oh my, and most of all, punctuation, comma splits and spaghettis sentences. This comes from German, since we usually use long, convoluted sentences, with many commata and few semicolons. Enjoy the post, maybe you find it just as helpful as I did.
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If you speak German, the I, me etc should be pretty simple. I is Nominativ; me is Akkusativ. Likewise, “who” is Nominativ, but “whom” is either Dativ or Akkusativ. Hope this helps 🙂
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Thank you! Yes, it does help. I’ve figured the who and whom out (I hope), I’ll try my best at the me/I.
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Reblogged this on themonsterunleashed and commented:
I loved this… an easy mistake to make sometimes when your in the zone! Reblogged!
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Excellent! Thanks so much for sharing. You know what drives me crazy? There’s a burger chain called Carl’s Jr. I can’t even look at the sign. What kind of possessive nonsense is this? Carl’s junior what? Is it supposed to be Carl Junior’s? My family laughs at me because I have to close my eyes if we pass the place. 🙂
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Lol – that’s so cute!! 😀
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Misuse of “literally” drives me figuratively insane. Not just as a matter of “the right way to use a word”, but because there’s not another common word that still means what “literally” literally does (“really” did at one point, but it’s drifted too far to reclaim), while there are multiple other words for every other meaning that it’s used for.
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And of course I make a careless grammar mistake in a post about grammar…
(I meant “drifted too far”.)
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I saw and I fixed. Fret not 🙂
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Lol – it’s becoming established, though. I expect people will use it to mean both, well, literally and its opposite in a decade or two.
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There is not even 1 i won’t know but can’t deny the fact that i would have done so many mistakes 🙂
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Tell me about it… 😀
Thanks for the comment and welcome!
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I guess we are in some passive state when we write 😀
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Reblogged this on jdtcreates and commented:
Very useful grammar checking tips!
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Great post! This is useful to all writers. Thank you, Nicholas, for sharing. Best wishes & hugs!
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So glad you enjoyed it 🙂
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Nicely summarized, Nicholas.
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Thanks! Not really my summary, but glad you enjoyed the post 🙂
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Informative and easy to see.
One mistake I see quite often is choose/chose. Using a text reader (and listening to the mechanical voice speak my words back to me) helps to catch the mistakes that most of us will miss when we’re tired or in a hurry.
Apostrophes, however, are another animal. My sister, the former grammar teacher, has given up trying to teach someone with dyslexia how to use one. 🙂
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Yes, dyslexia can be quite hard on grammar teachers!
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And my sister has the mental scars to prove it. 🙂
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