Adverbs

“… no longer apart of the group”

Adjectives, Adverbs, Idioms, Nouns, Prepositions

My wife saw this the other day in a seminar handout.

Problem:
The word “apart” — spelled A-P-A-R-T with no spaces — does not belong in this phrase.

Explanation:
The word “apart” as an adverb means into parts or pieces, as in “The tornado blew the house apart.”

The word “apart” can be combined with “from” to form a prepositional idiom that means besides or in addition to, as in “She wrote to no one apart from Jim.”

The word “apart” as an adjective means having unique or independent characteristics and is usually used after the noun that it modifies, as in “an institution apart”.

The word “apart” is NOT a noun, but a noun is what the phrase required, given that the writer was referring to someone not being a member of a group.

Solution:
“… no longer a part of the group”

“They credited me back the whole amount.”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Self-negation

I heard this yesterday during a news interview on a local television station.

Problem:
The adverb “back” makes the statement self-negating.

Explanation:
To “credit” an amount to someone is to refund what that person had paid.

The “re” in “refund” means back. Therefore, one could argue that a “refund back” action would never reach the intended recipient.

In other words, the adverb “back” should NOT be used to modify the verb “credit”.

For fun, I searched Google for “credit back” (with the quotation marks). Unfortunately, I could not use the results to get a reliable estimate of the number of erroneous instances because there are many instances on the Web of correct use.

For example, “Colorado lawmakers want to bring tax credit back.” is an example of correct use of “back” after “credit” because “back” in this sentence is modifying the verb “bring” instead of the noun “credit”.

Solutions:
“They credited me the whole amount.”
OR
“They credited the whole amount to me.”

“… which reflects back to our customers.”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Self-negation

I saw this in a presentation to customer-support personnel.

Problem:
The word “back” is redundant in this expression.

Explanation:
The expression was part of advice to customer-support personnel:

“Come to work with a smile on your face! That smile then brightens everyone’s day[,] which reflects back to our customers. A smile goes a long way over the phone when providing Best in Class Service.”

The “re” in “reflect” means back. Therefore, one could argue that a “reflects back” action would never reach the intended recipient.

Solution:
“… which reflects to our customers.”
OR, even better, given the full sentence,
“… which is transmitted to our customers.”