Common English Blunders

“She graduated college.”

Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Prepositions, Verbs

I often see or hear this and similar sentences.

Problem:
A preposition is missing.

Explanation:
Here’s a simple way to teach someone that “graduated college” is wrong.

Ask him whether he would say this:

  • “She graduated in 2012 college.”

He could reply by changing it to this:

  • “She graduated college in 2012.”

But, to keep “in 2012” before “college” requires the preposition “from”:

  • “She graduated in 2012 from college.”

If he agrees that this is necessary, then ask him to remove “in 2012”, which leaves him with this:

  • “She graduated from college.”

“from college” and “in 2012” are two prepositional phrases, the order of which does not affect the meaning of the sentence:

  • “She graduated from college in 2012.”
  • “She graduated in 2012 from college.”

Dropping of prepositions may be common but can be, as in this example, bad English, too.

Solution:
“She graduated from college.”

Learn More:
See “She graduates high school this year.” for another explanation about why the preposition “from” is necessary.

The Dreaded Double “is”

Common English Blunders, Hypercorrection, Redundancies, Verbs

A site visitor by the name of Kyle today reminded me about this common English blunder.

Problem:
Some people follow one “is” by a comma and another “is” when speaking.

Explanation:
Here is Kyle’s first example:

“What I’m trying to say is, is that I can’t remember his exact words.”

Read this example aloud, and you will recognize the pattern.

Read this example silently, though, and you will see the problem. The speaker, perhaps out of a sense of hypercorrection, has put a pause (the comma) after the first “is” and has put a second “is” after that pause — as if the listener has forgotten about the first “is” instance.

Correcting this example gives us:

“What I’m trying to say is that I can’t remember his exact words.”

Read this example, and you see that the “is” connects (or “equates”) the phrase on the left side of it to the phrase on the right side of it.

Here is reader Kyle’s second example:

“The thing is, is that I’m having a hard time remembering his exact words.”

Again, the solution is simple: replace “is, is” with “is”:

“The thing is that I’m having a hard time remembering his exact words.”

Solution:
Avoid the dreaded double “is” by replacing “… is, is …” with “… is …”.

Thanks, Kyle, for this excellent submission of what, unfortunately, is becoming yet another common English blunder!

To Come vs. To Go

Common English Blunders, Verbs, Versus

A reader named Warren emailed the following message to me recently: “I’m still a bit confused between to go and to come. U said it’s all about movement to or away from where the speaker or hearer is, my question is how do you define who the speaker is? is that the one that is talking? What about the following example: the doctor asked me to stop COMING back. In this case who’s the speaker? the doctor or the one who is talking?”

Warren, those are excellent questions. The best answers come from rewriting your example in three different ways.

1. “The doctor told me to stop COMING back to him.”
Consider an equivalent form but with a different person being told by the doctor what to do:

(a) “The doctor told Ms. Jones to stop coming back to him.”

Statement (a) puts you as the listener/reader in the location of the doctor. From the perspective of the doctor, Ms. Jones is COMING back to him.

2. “The doctor told me to stop GOING back to him.”
Consider an equivalent form but with a different person being told by the doctor what to do:

(b) “The doctor told Ms. Jones to stop going back to him.”

Statement (b) puts you as the listener/reader in a location OTHER THAN the location of the doctor. From the perspective of someone who is NOT at the doctor’s office, Ms. Jones is GOING back to him.

So #1 and #2 are each correct, but you have to decide as the speaker/writer whether you want to put the listener/reader at the location of the doctor (#1) or at your non-doctor’s-office location (#2).

In other words, you have to decide whether you want to focus the “told me”

  • on the act of the doctor (#1)
     
    -OR-
  • on what the doctor is requesting from your perspective/location (#2).

But let’s change your original sentence (#1) slightly:

3. “The doctor told me that I should stop ____ back to him.”
Consider an equivalent form but with a different person being told by the doctor what to do:

(c) “The doctor told Ms. Jones that she should stop ___ back to him.”

Statement (c) is equivalent to “The doctor told Ms. Jones that ‘X’.”, where ‘X’ is a complete sentence on its own.

For example, ‘X’ could be “The sky is blue.” — giving us “The doctor told Ms. Jones that the sky is blue.”.

So what should we put in the “___” in #3?

Sentence #3 becomes “The doctor told me that ‘X’.”, where X = “I should stop ___ back to him.”.

Try replacing “___” in this X with “GOING” and with “COMING” to see which one is correct:

(d) “I should stop GOING back to him.”
(e) “I should stop COMING back to him.”

Given that you (the “I” in (d)) are NOT where he (the “him” in (d)) is, you have to GO back to him.

In other words, you, where you are, cannot COME back to him.

So the correct completion of statement #3 is always “The doctor told me that I should stop GOING back to him.”