Grammar

The expression aren’t I is often used in place of am I not, particularly in conversational speech.

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Drug is often used as the past tense of drag, as in the following example:

Example: I drug myself out of bed this morning.

The past tense of drag is actually dragged, not drug. This error is particularly common in speech. Even Bill Clinton once made this blunder on national television, returning to bad habits he developed as a youth growing up in Arkansas.

Remember that the word drug should never be associated with any kind of pulling action. It should only be used when referring to some type of medicinal substance.

When asked, “How are you doing?” many people will immediately answer, “I am doing good.” Unless they’re talking about the good they’re doing for their community, they should have answered instead with “I am doing well.” (more…)

There are approximately 200 irregular verbs in the English language. These verbs form the past and past participle (have + verb) tenses differently from the present. These irregularities can be a nagging source of
confusion for many writers and speakers of English. (more…)

Less and fewer have essentially the same meaning, but they are used differently according to what they modify. Less is used with mass nouns, while Fewer is used with count nouns. (more…)

Lie and lay are two words that seem to cause some of the greatest confusion, even among those versed in English grammar. Lie means to recline; lay, on the other hand, means to put or place something. (more…)

The word like should never be used before a clause.

Example 1 (incorrect usage): It looks like it will rain.

Like should only be used before a noun, as in the following example:

Example 2 (correct usage): The girl looks like her mother.

Take a close look at the two sentences above. Do you see the difference in how they are used? In the first sentence, like is followed by the clause it will rain. In the second sentence, like is followed by her mother. Whenever a subject and verb follow, remember to substitute like with either as though or as if, as illustrated in the final example below.

Example 3 (correct): It looks as if it will rain.

The adverb only should be placed as close as possible to the word it modifies in a sentence. Consider the following two sentences: (more…)

Real is often used in place of really, most often in conversational English. (more…)

The phrase wait on should be used only when referring to serving someone or something.

Example 1 (correct usage): The server waited on the customers in the restaurant.

This phrase should never mistakenly be used in place of wait for.

Example 2 (incorrect usage): We waited on our guests to arrive.

Example 3 (correct usage): We waited for our guests to arrive.

The pronoun that is often mistakenly used in place of who. When the noun to which you are referring is a person, always use who. If, however, you are not referring to a person, then the appropriate pronoun to use is that.

Example 1 (incorrect usage): The waitress that served me was very rude. (In this sentence, that is referring to a real person–the waitress–so who should have been used instead.)

Example 2 (correct usage): The waitress who served me was very rude.

Example 3 (correct usage): The car that is parked in the street belongs to me. (That is correctly used because a car is not a person. Who would, of course, have been incorrect if used in this sentence.)

These two words must be a couple of the trickiest ones in the English language. It seems as if no speakers, and only some writers, know how to use who and whom correctly. In fact, whom doesn’t even exist in some people’s vocabularies, and unfortunately, it appears to be a word that is quickly disappearing from the English language.

Who is used as the subject of the clause it introduces.
Whom is used as the object of a preposition,
as a direct object, or as an indirect object.

A key to remembering which word to use is simply to substitute who or whom with a pronoun. If you can substitute he, she, we, or they in the clause, and it still sounds okay, then you know that who is the correct word to use. If, however, him, her, us, or them sounds more appropriate, then whom is the correct choice for the sentence.

The following are some example sentences that illustrate how to correctly use who and whom.

Example 1 (who): The woman who [not whom] is standing over there is my mother.

Example 2 (whom): Whom are you going out with tonight? (Note that in formal writing, the sentence should be read: “With whom are you going out tonight?”)

Example 3 (whom): The stranded motorist whom I helped was very grateful.

If you substitute she for who in Example 1, it becomes obvious
that who is the correct word: “…she [in place of who] is standing
over there.” Now take a look at Example 3 above. Take the clause whom I helped
and substitute him for whom. If you reverse the order of the words,
the clause becomes I helped him. Him is in the place of whom.
Remember that although this is a helpful way to distinguish between who

and whom, you have to look at just the part of the sentence that begins
with who or whom for this trick to work.