5 Common Mistakes In Spoken English
- By Incognito
With Teacher’s Day coming up, let’s go back to our old school days. Back in school, each one of us had his/her own favourite subject but who was your favourite teacher in school? I will not be surprised if your answer to my question is your English teacher. And a lot of times for the guys, your first crush happens to be your English teacher. (Remember Miss Braganza from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai!).
Jokes apart, let’s delve a bit deeper into grammar and check out the most common grammatical errors made by people.
Do you know your English grammar well? Let’s put it to test.
Take a look at sentences below and try to fill in the blanks with one of the words given in the bracket beside it. Don’t scroll down before you have the answers ready. No cheating!
There is no ______(space/place/room) on the desk.
My grandfather has _____(few/little) hair left.
I have been waiting _____(since/for) 2 hours.
Get ___(on/in) the bus.
For all those who are a victim of their Grammar Nazi friends’ comments, here’s your chance to take a revenge by posing them with these simple yet confusing word couples.
1. “Space” vs “Place” vs “Room”
Which one of the following seems correct?
This bus is overcrowded. There is no place in the bus.
There is no place on the desk.
We don’t have any space in our kitchen garden to plant more saplings.
Can we use the above three words interchangeably? While we speak, it may seem so but actually, it is wrong. All the three words mentioned above have different usages.
Space: An unoccupied place/unfilled gap which may or may not be used
Place: A particular location
Room: A space (unfilled gap) which can be occupied or something can be done
Sometimes, “Space” & “Room” can be used interchangeably but not always.
Leave a room between two chairs. (Incorrect)
Leave a space between two chairs. (Correct)
The correct sentences would be:
This bus is overcrowded. There is no room in the bus.
There is no space on the desk.
And the third one is correct.
A correct usage of “place” would be
One can’t be in two places at the same time.
2. “Few” vs “Little”
At the first glance, it looks the same and it feels that “few” and “little” can be used interchangeably. But that’s not the norm.
We use “Few” with countable nouns like few oranges, few apples while “little” is used for uncountable nouns like little time or little energy.
After knowing the rule, what do you think you would use with money? Few or little? Can money be counted? Little money sounds correct but isn’t money countable?
The answer is No. Money is not countable. The notes or coins that give you the value of money are countable but not money itself. And thus, we use “little money” and not “few money”.
3. “A Few” vs “Few” and “A Little” vs “Little”
Now that you know the difference between “little” and “few”, let’s go deeper and find out about “a few” and “few”.
Like mentioned previously, “few” indicates a small number of the countable noun being referred to. On the contrary, “a few” indicates just the opposite of “few”. Let’s have a look at the following sentences:
Sakshi had a few moments to cherish.
Sakshi had few moments to cherish.
The first sentence means that there were some moments that were worth cherishing while the second sentence means she had almost no moments or hardly any moments to cherish.
The same logic is applied to “little” as well, just that little is used for uncountable nouns as mentioned earlier.
I have a little energy left.
I have little energy left.
I hope you can now figure out what the above 2 sentences mean.
4. “Since” vs “For”
Both words denote the duration of an activity but differ in their usage. We use “since” to indicate something that started in the past but hasn’t finished yet. “For” denotes the duration of that activity.
The correct rule is to use “since” + the start of the time period. The syntax for using “for” is “for” + the duration of the activity
I have been waiting since 12 pm.
I have been waiting for 2 hours.
5. “On” vs “In” (In case of transportation)
Would you say “Get in the taxi” or “Get on the taxi”?
Would you say “Get in the bus” or “Get on the bus”?
We use “on” when we talk about public or commercial transportation and “in” when we talk about personal transportation.
To make it easier for you to remember, if you must sit in the vehicle, use “in”. If you can stand/walk in the vehicle, use “on”.
The correct sentences are:
Get on the train.
Get on the bus.
Get in the taxi.
Did you know these differences? Let me know other common grammatical errors/ homophone errors that you have come across in the Comments section.
Well, if you knew these differences beforehand, you paid attention to your English lessons that merely admiring your English teacher. Make sure you wish them a Happy Teacher’s Day.
If you didn’t, thank me for imparting this knowledge to you and wish me a Happy Teacher’s Day in the Comments Section.
From the DummyWriter:
This post of mine was inspired by a post which had the following caption:
If you know the difference between your and you’re, you should thank your teacher.
Rarely have we come across posts that focus on spoken English. Most of the times, it is about correct grammar. So, I decided to come up with an article which would help us improve our spoken English.
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1 thought on “5 Common Mistakes In Spoken English”
This is very apt and easy to follow in world of shorthand…the so called cellphone generation.
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