SOME COMMON GRAMMATICAL SLIPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2240, 4 February 1897, Page 50

SOME COMMON GRAMMATICAL SLIPS.

One of the peculiar differences between French and English is that an educated Frenchman can hardly ever be caught in a

other mistake may sound pedantic. It is this : " Give me the bigger half, please." Now, half of a cake or of an apple is half — that is, the two pieces are of equal size, so that one cannot be bigger than the other. To be accurate, therefore, we should say | " Give me the biggor piece." IE the reader will take up almost any newspaper, and look through an article, he will probably find that "on " and " upon " are misused. The second, strictly speaking, can only be need when there is motion. " Fat that upon the table," for example. Whilst " the jag is on the table "is correct, because the jug is at re§fc. Adjectives and adverbs, however, are more misused than anything elae, probably. Even a writer like Thomas Carlyle used a phrase, " He did it wroDg," when it should have been " wrongly," and a similar error is to bo found in almost every work. Wo shall give one more Instance of usually | misused words before going on to another | class of conversational mistakes. It refers to words such as " drunk," " swim," " sink," " drown," itc. To hear a person say, " I drunk a cup of tea," is much more usual than to hear the correct form, " I drank." With these people, " swim " and " sink " make their perf eot tenses " swum " and " sunk." , "Think," perhaps, if it did not chance to ! make its perfect tenee irregularly, would become " thunk." With reference to " drown," for aorne reason or other a "d " is added in the present tense, making the verb "to ' drownd." As a consequence, the word " drown ded " is manufactured, and we have frequently heard this amongst highly educated people. There are literally dczsns of other mistakes which are daily made in conversation, but spacs prohibits their being included here. Instead, we will mention a few common slips in pronunciation. Most usual amongst these is pronouncing words ending in " or," such as " actor," " editor," &c, as if they terminated in " er." Then, again, the months often have unwarrantable liberties taken with their names. I January is called " Janury " ; February," "Febuarr," or even "Feburv"; whilst In-

grammatical slip when speaking, but even members of the Academy make them in writing, whilst in Engliih it is just the opposite. Many Englishmen can write absolutely correct grammar, but there is hardly a single educated man in tbis country — we ought to say not one — who never makes a slip in conversation. It is not that he cannot, but that he does not, speak the language correctly. As, therefore, this paper is for the education of its readers, as well as for their amusement, a few of the most usual grammatical slips might prove instructive as well as interesting.

We will pasß over the use of " me " instead of " I," using " was" instead of the subjunctive " were " in sentences suoh as " If I was him " instead of "If I were he," and the mixture of "shall" and "will" and " who " and " whom," and go on to those mistakes wbiob are not so easily caugbt up.

The use of " as " instead oE "so " is one of these, and is very common in sentences such as " He does not do that as well as 80-an-so." The first "as " should of course be " so.' Another usual slip is using "or " instead of " nor." " Neither one or the other," for example, while hardly one person out of a thousand ever, even in writing, .uses the words " that " and " which "in the proper way, but says" the man that," whioh is correct, and " the paper that," which is nothing of the kind. Yet the rule that "that" refers to living beings and " whioh " to things is simple enough.

Most people say " compared to." A thing is not compared to anything etas, but with it ; and a man is not independent from another, but of him.

With reference, to the first of the above, a very ourious pair of mistakes is often made. People almost invariably speak about the biggest of two tbipgs. One thing can only be bigger than another ; it requires at least three for one of them to b8 the biggest. The

variably people lose sight of the fact that Wednesday has three, not two, syllables, and bo oall it " Wensday."

Extraordinary is often— more often than not, in faot — culled " extrordinary " ; reoogoise is called " reooniiie," pantomime is treated as if it were something of the nature of a coal mine, and real is pronounced in one syllable, as if it were the same as a cottonreel. To oall violets " voilets " is, of course, merely a vulgar error — few people with any pretence to education ever do so — bat thousands of people call the flower a " vilet," instead of a violet ; and on a precisely similar prinoiple they oall a violin a " vilin," and a ban viol a " vile "—but there is some exouse for this, for when that instrument is not properly played it ceases to be a viol and becomes really vife.