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How Do We Learn to Speak Correctly?
Introduction
You know more about good grammar than you may think. To illustrate, choose the right word in the following statement:
Yesterday I (go, went) to the store.
The correct choice is “went.” Almost everybody who grew up speaking English will get that right. But why did you get it right? If you are a native English speaker, you didn’t need the official grammar rule: To express the indicative past tense in the first person, use the indicative first person past tense of the verb with the first-person pronoun. “Went” just “sounded” correct.
But that didn’t happen by magic. You learned this grammatical principle a long time ago, and you learned it the natural way: by repetition. The adults around you spoke like that (if they spoke English). You imitated them, and they corrected you when you got it wrong. You didn’t have to lug around a grammar book when you were 3 years old, but you still learned when to say “went.” It became a habit.
Unfortunately, not all the language habits we learn are good ones. You probably hear language errors all the time: on TV, in schools, in the workplace, or from family and friends. So like everyone, you’ve probably formed some bad habits, habits that can be disastrous when it’s important to speak correctly. People judge you by the way you speak, and they can dismiss what you have to say if you say it carelessly. They might conclude that you lack the professional polish to do a certain kind of job, or miss your point altogether because of mistakes or verbal clutter in your manner of speaking.
This book will help you unlearn those bad language habits and learn good ones. Grammar and usage principles are explained along the way—you need to know the rules in order to understand why a sentence is right or wrong—but knowing the rules isn’t enough. Here’s one rule, for example, that many find confusing:
Use the subjective case of the relative pronoun “who/ whom” as the subject of a verb or after a finite form of the verb “to be”; use the objective case of the relative pronoun “who/whom” as the object of a verb, the indirect object of a verb, the subject of an infinitive, the object of an infinitive, or the object of a preposition.
Now that you’ve seen the rule, try answering the following question:
Unfortunately, the person (who, whom) Frank believed was his new secretary proved to be the efficiency expert hired to evaluate his grammar.
The correct answer is “who”: it’s the subject of the verb “was” (not, incidentally, the object of the verb “believed”). If you had trouble figuring it out, don’t worry. Knowing the rule is helpful, but you need practice, too, along with some useful tips for making the complicated rules memorable. That is just what this program will give you. The rules of grammar and usage have been incorporated into a user-friendly package that will help you to learn the “official” rules, and reinforce your understanding through short-cut tips in many cases, and then you can test yourself on numerous examples.
What Kind of Errors Does This Program Include?
Many reference books on grammar and usage address thousands of topics, some of them so obscure that they never come up in daily life. But this book is a more focused program that will help you make the most of your time. Rather than cover every possible problem, two criteria were used to decide whether or not to include an error:
1. Is the error one that will suggest to others that your language isn’t quite what it could be? If you misuse the word “immanent,” only a few theologians and philosophers will be able to catch the error or care that you’ve made it. But if you mix up the verbs “lay” and “lie,” many people at work or in social situations will think that you use language carelessly.
2. Is the error one of the mistakes that people make most often? This book includes the errors that give the most difficulty to the most people. That doesn’t mean that every individual makes all these mistakes. Because each of us learns the language differently at home and at school, you’ll probably find some errors that seem laughably obvious to you, along with others that you are surprised to learn are incorrect. And you may not find a few of the errors that concern you. That’s because some errors, while important, are pretty rare—accidental products of the way that one particular individual learned the language. One of the editors of this book, for example, mispronounced the word “novel” until she was 22, when some kind person finally pointed it out to her. But because not many people make this error, it hasn’t been included, however much psychological damage it caused our editor in her youth. So while not every mistake you’ve ever made will appear here, you’ll be able resolve the most important problems most people have with the language.
The mistakes we include fall into three broad classes: grammar, usage, and pronunciation.
1. Grammar refers to the fundamental principles and structure of the language, including clear and correct sentence construction and the proper forms of words. This category includes mixing up transitive and intransitive verbs (such as “lie” vs. “lay”), mixing up the correct forms of pronouns (such as “who” vs. “whom”), and using a verb that doesn’t agree with its subject (as in “Everyone are going to the store”).
2. Usage refers to the way that particular words are used. Such errors include mixing up words that sound alike (such as “affect” vs. “effect”), mixing up words whose meanings are related (such as “imply” vs. “infer”), using made-up words (such as “irregardless”), and using so-called clutter expressions that don’t add anything to your meaning (such as “at that point in time”).
3. Pronunciation problems are important because mispronouncing a word will definitely affect the way people perceive you. In Chapter 13, you’ll see the correct pronunciations of some of the most frequently mispronounced words in English, such as “nuclear.”
How This Program Is Organized
You can start the program by taking a test! No, don’t run away. The Pretest that follows this introduction is designed to save you some time; it will help you identify what you need to work on most. The Pretest’s key will let you know where in the program to look for help on anything you get wrong or find difficult.
To remind you of some of the basic vocabulary you’ll need in order to follow the lessons, a Grammar Review has been included at the beginning of the book. But you don’t necessarily have to attack this first. You can read right through it if you’d like, or you can go straight to the errors themselves, and refer back to the Grammar Review if the lessons contain a term you don’t understand. If you think the “imperative mood” is something your mother was in when she insisted that you do your chores, you’ll find the Grammar Review helpful.
To break up the program into manageable chunks, the errors have been grouped into units related to a specific area of difficulty, such as tricky verbs or subj ect/verb agreement. These units are arranged in a logical order that will allow you to progress from less complicated concepts to more complicated ones. Because each chapter is self-contained, it’s possible to jump directly to the errors that most interest you. If the Pretest lets you know that you have trouble with subject/verb agreement, for example, you can jump right to Chapter 3 and learn all about it. But it is strongly suggested that you work only on one chapter at a time, and to consider taking the chapters in order. You’ll get better and faster results if you progress through groups of closely related errors.
To make it easier for you to work through each chapter, they’ve been subdivided into sections containing errors that can be traced back to one grammar or usage rule. The unit on verbs, for example, contains a section on transitive vs. intransitive verbs, a section on tricky verb tenses, and a section on the subjunctive. The sections will begin with a brief lesson explaining the rule, and then will address the individual errors.
The individual errors are easy to find because they are numbered for quick reference. They follow a fairly consistent pattern. You’ll find:
• A brief lesson in some sections to give you some basic concepts.
• The number and name of the error.
• A sample of an incorrect sentence headed by Don’t Say. If this sentence sounds right to you, you’ll know it’s a bad habit you’ll have to unlearn, and that you’ll need to pay extra attention to this entry.
• A corrected sentence headed by Say instead.
• A Here’s Why section that explains the basic rule or usage guideline, which may be anywhere from a sentence to a few paragraphs long, depending on how complicated the topic is.
• Additional sentence examples to help you remember the correct form.
• A tip, on occasion, to help you remember the rule.
To help you review and measure your progress, there is a Test at the end of each section in all the chapters except the one on pronunciation. You’ll find the answers in a key at the end of the test. You should take the tests when you feel you’ve mastered the contents of a section.
Finally, to help you determine whether you’ve really formed a new habit, additional Review Tests (with answer keys) are included at the end of the manual. These review tests cover the grammatical concepts that people find most difficult. These tests will work best for you if you take them after you’ve read the chapter more than once and done some practicing out loud. Try waiting a day—or even a week—before taking a chapter’s review test. This will let you know whether you’ve really formed a new habit.
Finally, you may want to retake the Pretest after you’ve been working with the program for several weeks. This will give you the satisfaction of learning how far you’ve come!
We hope you’ll find this program helpful. “Habit,” as the philosopher Michel de Montaigne once said, “is a second nature.” If you’re committed to forming new habits, we believe that clear and precise language can become second nature to you, allowing you to speak with ease and confidence.
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