A Grammatical Refresher Course

What you write, whether it’s in a letter, an email, or a text, says a lot about you. But how you write it says even more. These days, it seems that grammatical rights and wrongs and do’s and don’ts are easily forgotten. Unfortunately, making these mistakes in your writing can make you look uneducated.

For this reason, I’m presenting a short grammatical review of a few of the most common mistakes.

There/Their/They’re

Each of these words means something different, even though they sound the same. Words that sound the same but mean different things are homonyms. Here’s a quick list of how and when to use each of these:

there- a place

Over there.

their- belonging to them

Their cat.

they’re- a contraction for “they are”

They’re here!

To/Too/Two

One of my biggest pet peeves is the misuse of the to trio.

to- used to express motion

I am going to the store.

too- also

I have one of those, too!

two- the number

One, two, three…

A vs. An

Many people are confused about when to use “an” as opposed to “a.” An should be used before any word that starts with a vowel. An octopus. An elephant. A fish. A dog.

Of course, there are a few exceptions.

Common vs. Proper Nouns

As Schoolhouse Rock tells us, proper nouns get capitalized. But what about proper nouns with more than one word in the name?

Let’s try this- which is correct? Eiffel tower or Eiffel Tower?

The answer is Eiffel Tower. Because it is one thing, both parts of its name get capitalized.

Double Negatives

I think of this like math. When you multiply two negative numbers together, the negatives cancel out. Same thing with “negative” words. Negative words are words like no, never, don’t, ain’t. So if you say, for instance, “I ain’t never seen that before,” you’re really saying “I’ve seen that before.”

So, don’t combine negatives.

I hope that this short list helps!

For Extra Help, See:

Parts of Speech