The Grammar Curmudgeon Invites you to take the GIQT
Jan 28 '06 (Updated Jan 23 '09)
The Bottom Line The Grammar Curmudgeon welcomes new candidates for the honorary position of Grammar Irregular: apply within!
From time to time, The Grammar Curmudgeon receives electronic communications from a small but select group of like-minded correspondents. It may surprise you to learn that tGC is not the only person who pales upon witnessing maltreatment of his native language. Hardly a day goes by that he does not receive a missive directing him to yet another case of comma catastrophe or adverb abuse. Upon viewing such misadventures his curmudgeonliness can but sigh mightily and move on. He does, however, keep a mental list, which he shares with his readers from time to time. As the ranks of the Grammar Irregulars have grown sparse of late, it's time to find new volunteers. What better way than an "entrance exam"?
For those who might be interested, the GIQT (Grammar Irregular Qualifying Test) Follows. Without further ado, take out a pencil and a piece of paper. Ready? Begin!
Part the First: Identify and replace the incorrect word(s) in the following sentences.
1: Winter driving is far safer in cars with modern features such as antilock breaks and skid control.
2: I'd never heard of this author before, but your review has certainly peeked my interest in her work.
3: We had never considered buying this brand before do to its reputation for low quality.
4: The roll of James was admirably filled by a fine young actor making his feature film debut.
5: Thank you for providing such a valuable incite into the process of selecting a new mattress.
6: It's a fun and educational game to play, weather you are the winner or the looser.
7: Koontz builds suspense masterfully: you'll find yourself waiting with baited breathe for each new plot twist.
8: Every page of The New Basics Cookbook features delicious receipts for appetizers, entries, or desserts.
9: My favorite thing about the park is the miles of hiking and bridal paths winding in and around the cedar breaks and shear cliffs.
10: I had no idea how affective mere suggestion could be, but the scene where the boy peaks into his underpants and glimpses a leach had me howling with laughter.
Part the Second: Indicate which are spelled correctly (C) and which are incorrect (I).
11: parrallel
12: mischevious
13: minuscule
14: harrassment
15: concensus
16: seperate
17: recommend
18: aquaintance
19: prerogative
20: comittment
Part the Third: Identify and correct the common grammatical mistake(s) in each of the following sentences.
21: The CEO of the company, as well as the COO and the CFO, were indicted for fraud.
22: My mother, my sisters, my two brother-in-laws, and all my nieces and nephews stayed at the same hotel.
23: My stupid computer crashed repeatedly, once wiping out an hours work in a flash.
24: I shouldn't continue without thanking all the friends, that supported me through thick and thin.
25: He told me to take the monitor back to whoever sold it to me in the first place.
26: The final decision on which car to buy will be made by both my husband and myself.
27: John Q. Public is the main character, a man trapped in circumstances he couldn't control.
28: I clicked on the link for mens' clothing, but I found a dead link.
29: I chose Gmail instead of Hotmail because I had heard less complaints about losing email.
30: It's renowned as one of the most unique restaurants in the state.
Answers below...
Word Use
1: Winter driving is far safer in cars with modern features such as antilock brakes and skid control.
Discussion: This is a very common homophone confusion over in Cars and Motorsports.
2: I'd never heard of this author before, but your review has certainly piqued my interest in her work.
Discussion: Use neither "peeked" nor "peaked" in this meaning. The verb "to pique" means "to provoke or arouse," and is etymologically related to two words often used for "spicy": the French piquant and the Spanish picante.
3: We had never considered buying this brand before due to its reputation for low quality.
Discussion: This is also a fairly common homophone confusion. Rarely, however, is either confused with "dew," for reasons unknown.
4: The role of James was admirably filled by a fine young actor making his feature film debut.
5: Thank you for providing such a valuable insight into the process of selecting a new mattress.
Discussion: Not only are the words spelled differently, the word "insight" is a noun and "incite" is a verb. Confusion of the two is, unfortunately, almost as common as confusion of the homophones "cite," "sight", and "site."
6: It's a fun and educational game to play, whether you are the winner or the loser.
Discussion: the confusion of "weather" and "whether" is surprisingly common. The word "looser" is not the opposite of "winner," it is the opposite of "tighter."
7: Koontz builds suspense masterfully: you'll find yourself waiting with bated breath for each new plot twist.
Discussion: "Bated" has nothing to do with worms - it's a shortened form of the word "abated," meaning "held." "Breathe" is a verb, meaning "to take a breath."
8: Every page of The New Basics Cookbook features delicious recipes for appetizers, entrees, or desserts.
Discussion: Fooled you, didn't I: you were expecting confusion of "deserts" and "desserts." As used here, "desserts" - meaning sweets or fruits - is correct.
9: My favorite thing about the park is the miles of hiking and bridle paths winding in and around the cedar breaks and sheer cliffs.
Discussion: When used as it is here, a "break" is a sharp change in topography, hence the reference to sheer cliffs. "Shear" is a verb, "sheer" is an adjective, and "bridal" refers to marriage, not horses.
10: I had no idea how effective mere suggestion could be, but the scene where the boy peeks into his underpants and glimpses a leech had me howling with laughter.
Discussion: "Affective" is a technical term used in psychology; the adjective "effective" is formed from the noun "effect." See the notes about "peek" above - here, it means to glance quickly. A bloodsucking invertebrate is a "leech"; the word "leach" is (usually) a verb describing the act of removing chemicals or other constituents from a mixture (such as soil) with a percolating liquid.
Spelling:
11: parrallel incorrect: parallel
12: mischevious incorrect: mischievous
13: minuscule correct
14: harrassment incorrect: harassment
15: concensus incorrect: consensus
16: seperate incorrect: separate
17: recommend correct
18: aquaintance incorrect: acquaintance
19: prerogative correct
20: comittment incorrect: commitment
Grammatical boo-boos
21: The CEO of the company, as well as the COO and the CFO, was indicted for fraud.
Discussion: The subject and verb of the sentence must agree in number, regardless of any words that may come between them. The most common offense of this type is to force the verb to agree with a plural word that is the object of a preposition, e.g., The box of cards are brown.
22: My mother, my sisters, my two brothers-in-law, and all my nieces and nephews stayed at the same hotel.
Discussion: In a compound noun such as sister-in-law or passer-by, the major or more important word is pluralized, not the entire phrase: pluralization yields "sisters-in-law and "passers-by."
23: My stupid computer crashed repeatedly, once wiping out an hour's work in a flash.
Discussion: Expressions of time and measurement are always treated as possessive: consider a hard day's night, a week's pay, a foot's distance.
24: I shouldn't continue without thanking all the friends that supported me through thick and thin.
Discussion: The comma is gone. This is a restrictive clause, meaning that it specifically identifies which of his/her "friends" the writer is thanking, and therefore should not be set off by a comma. Inveterate Thistlebottoms might argue that the word "that" should be changed to "who," but doing so is unnecessary if the "people" in question are not identified by name.
25: He told me to take the monitor back to whomever sold it to me in the first place.
Discussion: "Whomever" is the objective case, which use is necessitated by the preposition "to."
26: The final decision on which car to buy will be made by both my husband and me.
Discussion: Objective case again: the pronouns ending in "-self" are reflexive, and must only be used in cases where the subject of the sentence is also the object of the verb, i.e., I gave myself a pat on the back.
27: John Q. Public is the main character, a man trapped in circumstances he can't control.
Discussion: Keep the same verb tense throughout the entire piece. Here, it has changed from present tense to past tense in the same sentence.
28: I clicked on the link for men's clothing, but I found a dead link.
Discussion: To make a possessive of an irregular plural - children, men, women, mice - simply add apostrophe s: children's, men's, women's, mice's.
29: I chose Gmail instead of Hotmail because I had heard fewer complaints about losing email.
Discussion: Use "less" for comparison of mass or volume, "fewer" for comparison of count: less money, less weight, less idealism; fewer dollars, fewer pounds, fewer ideas.
30: It's renowned as one of the most unusual restaurants in the state.
Discussion: "Unique" is an absolute, and cannot be modified. The restaurant is either truly one of a kind, or it's merely unusual.
Scoring: Give yourself one point for each correct answer. If there are two in a sentence, you should have caught them both. Go ahead and whine, no partial credit will be granted.
28-30: Would you consider joining the grammar irregulars?
23-27: Ahead of the crowd
19-22: Needs work
0-18: ToEFL classes meet regularly at your local community college...
How'd you do? The Grammar Curmudgeon got a 29 - he has a bad habit of putting a second r in "harassment." New Irregulars are invited to email any new "finds" to tGC - see his profile page for an email address.
This is the unlucky thirteenth note from the Grammar Curmudgeon, an irregular series of... what, "diatribes"? "rants"? "suggestions"? on improving the quality of your writing - not just here on Epinions, but every time you create a sentence, a paragraph, or even a book. Feel free to suggest further topics (I already have a generation's worth up my sleeve) by emailing me or leaving a comment.
You can read the previous installment of the Grammar Curmudgeon at Angst, and the next installment at Spellchecker.
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