Common English Blunders

“Let’s discuss about it.”

Common English Blunders, Prepositions, Verbs

I recently saw this in an email message.

Problem:
The preposition “about” should never follow the verb “discuss”.

Explanation:
The definition of the verb “discuss” is to consider by argument or comment; to write or talk about.

Therefore, “discuss about” literally can mean to talk about about.

Following the verb “discuss” with the preposition “about” seems to be a fairly common English blunder, given that a search of Google for “discuss about” (with the quotation marks) returned approximately 1,340,000 matches.

I believe that this blunder represents a belief by some people that the verbs “discuss” and “talk” are equivalent, given that “Let’s talk about it.” is grammatically correct and given that a search of Google for “talk about” (with the quotation marks) returned approximately 120,000,000 matches.

Solution:
“Let’s discuss it.”

“Those ones …”

Common English Blunders, Plurals, Pronouns

I heard this from someone the other day.

Problem:
The word “ones” is unnecessary in this phrase.

Explanation:
The individual said a sentence such as “Those ones are bigger.”

The word “those” in the phrase “Those ones …” is acting as a determiner.

Other examples of “those” as a determiner include:

  • “I like those chocolates.”
  • “Do you want those tickets?”
  • “He should give her those flowers.”

Also, it is possible to pluralize the singular numerical pronoun “one”, as in the following examples:

  • “I like the vanilla ones.”
  • “The ones in green are tickets for the front row.”
  • “Are the pink flowers the ones that he wants?”

However, when the word “ones” is preceded by a plural determiner (such as “those”), it is best to drop the word “ones”, thereby converting the determiner “these” into a demonstrative pronoun, as shown in the following examples:

  • “I like those.”
  • “Do you want those?”
  • “He should give her those.”

Solution:
“Those …”

“… no more frequent then usual.”

Adjectives, Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Mispronunciations, Nouns, Prepositions

I heard this recently during a radio broadcast.

Problem:
The word “then” is not a preposition.

Explanation:
The radio broadcaster said a sentence such as “The telephone calls to the radio station during this hour were no more frequent then usual.”

The problem with this sentence is that the word “then” — spelled T-H-E-N — is not a preposition.

Instead, this word is any of the following:

  • adverb, as in “Prices were higher then.”, where “then” means “at that time” in this sentence;
  • adjective, as in “The then president of the club was a nice guy.”, where “then” means “existing” in this sentence;
  • noun, as in “We have not seen a show at the Alley Theatre since then.”, where “then” means “that time” in this sentence.

What the phrase “no more frequent then usual” requires is a preposition, given that the speaker is comparing “more frequent” with “usual”.

The required preposition is “than” — spelled T-H-A-N, not T-H-E-N.

I believe that the common English blunder of using “then” where the preposition “than” is required is due in part to mispronunciation of the preposition “than”, but simple ignorance about these two words certainly could play a part, too.

Solution:
“… no more frequent than usual.”