Most people have bad habits when they talk, which is probably O.K. when you're talking to friends. What you have to be careful of is not letting your poor speech habits carry over into your writing.
Here are some typical examples. How many do you use?
- 'Seen'
'I seen the car go by just before noon.'
This one makes you sound really uneducated when you say it, and of course it's totally unacceptable in writing. It should be 'I saw the car ...'
But you knew that already, right?
- 'Fall'
I have to go out in the bush to fall a tree for some firewood.'
This is a quite common error. In fact, it is incorrect; the correct verb is 'fell', even in the present tense! So the correct sentence would be 'I have to go out in the bush to fell a tree'. Don't believe it? Check a dictionary!
- Collective Nouns That Really Aren't
'I drive truck for Johnson's operation'
'Dave runs Cat for his father'
Listen to people talk and you'll hear these a lot. Just don't write with them!
The correct expressions are:
'I drive trucks for Johnson's', or 'I drive a truck for Johnson's'
'Dave runs a Cat', or 'Dave runs Cats'
- 'Link'
'I shot a link out by the pasture.
Perhaps because they've never seen it spelled correctly, many people use the word 'link' when they mean 'lynx'. The singular is 'one lynx', and the plural is also 'many lynx'. So the correct sentence would be, 'I shot a lynx out by the pasture.'
Watch for more writing tips to come!
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