20 Common Grammar Mistakes That (Almost) Everyone Makes

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The Uses of While

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My interest in the conjunction while got picked when I saw a sign on SM Department Stores, which goes, "Pay your bills while shopping."

When I read that line, I had to look up the word "while" again. I know that while connotes simultaneous action. This means that I am paying bills and shopping at the same time, which is highly improbable to do.

Here's what I learned (again) from Dictionary.com about the uses of the conjunction "while."

1. during or in the time that.
2. throughout the time that; as long as.
3. even though; although: While she appreciated the honor, she could not accept the position.
4. at the same time that (showing an analogous or corresponding action): The floor was strewn with books, while magazines covered the tables.

That SM line is correct after all. :D

I've Achieved!

"I've achieved!"

I first saw this slogan on billboards. My first reaction was to ask myself, "isn't the verb "achieve" a transitive verb?"

A transitive verb needs an object to complete its thought. For example: 

The sales team achieved its quota for the quarter. 
The college graduate feels that he has achieved a lot.

But then again I don't think the company--and a call center at that--that put out that slogan didn't make sure that they were expressing a good and grammatically correct sentence. So I looked up again the word "achieve." 


Dictionary.com says:

Achieve
–verb (used with object)

to bring to a successful end; carry through; accomplish: The police crackdown on speeders achieved its purpose.

2. to get or attain by effort; gain; obtain: to achieve victory.

–verb (used without object)

3. to bring about an intended result; accomplish some purpose or effect.

So, there, the word can be with or without an object. 

Thanks to this "I've achieved!" slogan, I am able to review my English grammar/usage again. ;)

The Student Theme

by Ronald Wallace

The adjectives all ganged up on the nouns,
insistent, loud, demanding, inexact,
their Latinate constructions flashing. The pronouns
lost their referents: They were dangling, lacked
the stamina to follow the prepositions' lead
in, on, into, to, toward, for, or from.
They were beset by passive voices and dead
metaphors, conjunctions shouting But! or And!

The active verbs were all routinely modified
by adverbs, that endlessly and colorlessly ran
into trouble with the participles sitting
on the margins knitting their brows like gerunds
(dangling was their problem, too). The author
was nowhere to be seen; was off somewhere.

"The Student Theme" by Ronald Wallace, from The Uses of Adversity. © The University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998.

Via: The Writer's Almanac

Censorship and Word Choice

I chanced upon this post on Six Sentences and I thought of how censorship can sometimes hinder us from expressing how we feel and see things. :)

Click here to see what I mean.

Got any question or answer on usage?

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Why Mis(s) Usage?

It's my English with all the quirks and the perks. 

In this blog, I'll be chronicling the "misusage," a term I coin for this purpose, which refers to the lapses in English usage, stylistics, and grammar. 

I will also share good usage with you, which we all can learn from. Thus, the name Mis(s)Usage, a play of "misusage" and Miss Usage, you know like Ms. Grammar. ;)

More about me HERE.