CORRECTIONS & EXPLANATIONS - June 7, 2009

Here are the corrections for last week’s entries.

Monday

HE/HIM/SHE/HER

All the words are pronouns.

“He” and “she” are the subjective case.

“Him” and “her” are the objective case.

The subjective case and the objective case are not interchangeable. The biggest error is in a sentence such as: “Him and her went on a date.” It should be: “He and she went on a date.”


Tuesday

Find and correct the errors in the following pieces.

“The Ontario Court of Appeal issued the decision upholding damages for 'lost housekeeping capacity' making Claudia McIntyre the first person in Ontario to be awarded compensation for injuries affecting a person's ability to clean their house.”

“Person’s” is singular; “their”, which refers to “person’s”, is plural.

“The Ontario Court of Appeal issued the decision upholding damages for 'lost housekeeping capacity' making Claudia McIntyre the first person in Ontario to be awarded compensation for injuries affecting a person's ability to clean her house.”

“Both passenger and commercial traffic was flowing in typical fashion at North America's busiest border crossing that links to Windsor with only brief warnings issued by U.S. border guards for those without the proper documents.”

Ha! Fooled you! This is correct if you accept "passenger" and "commercial" as adjectives modifying "traffic".


Wednesday

PREDOMINATE/PREDOMINANT

“Predominate” is a verb meaning to be larger in number, quantity, importance or power.

“Predominant” is an adjective meaning continual, the most frequent or common.


Thursday

Identify and correct the error in the following sentence.

“Appreciate the brave young Canadian men and women who have gone to Afghanistan to fight the war on terrorism, especially those who have lost their lives in defence of our shared freedoms?”

This is an incomplete sentence because there is no subject.

“We must appreciate the brave young Canadian men and women who have gone to Afghanistan to fight the war on terrorism, especially those who have lost their lives in defence of our shared freedoms?”


Friday

PARTS OF SPEECH

Identify and define the eight parts of speech.

A noun is a word that names a person, place or thing. (coat, girl, tree)

A verb is a word that shows action or being. (fight, are)

An adjective is a word that modifies a noun. (big, red, fat, emotional)

An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb. (greatly, quickly)

A preposition is a word that starts a phrase and takes an object. (in, on, for)

A conjunction is a word that connects words, phrases, clauses or sentences. (that, when, who)

An interjection is a word that expresses emotion and that can stand alone. (Oh! Gee! Golly! Rats!)

An article is a word that designates a noun or pronoun. (the, a, an)


WORTH THINKING ABOUT

Identify the author of the following truism.

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
Dale Carnegie said this.

LAST WEEK’S WORDS

“Endemic” (n.) refers to a constantly present disease in people of a certain area.
“Endemic” (adj.) means of a disease or anything disease-like constantly present to a greater or lesser degree in a region.

“Pariah” (n.) is a castaway, an outcast or a person who is rejected from society.

“Predilection” (n.) means a liking, a preference or a penchant for something or someone.

“Fractious” (adj.) means cranky, peevish irritable or petulant.

“Stilted” (adj.) Means stiffly dignified, formal or pompous as one on stilts.