“advised of”

Common English Blunders, Prepositions, Verbs

I saw this combination this morning.

Problem:
The preposition “of” should not follow the verb “advised”.

Explanation:
When used as an intransitive verb, “advise” means to offer advice.

This morning I saw a sentence such as “He was advised of the situation.”

If we were to apply the definition of the intransitive verb “advise” to the sentence, we would get “He was offered advice of the situation.”

That would literally mean “He was offered the situation’s advice.”, but the situation itself has no advice.

Instead, the writer of the sentence was trying to say “He was told about the situation.”

This gives us the solution, which is that the intransitive verb “advised” should be followed by the preposition “about” instead of the preposition “of”.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following combinations (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “advised of” — 7,480,000 matches
  • “advised about” — 136,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the incorrect vs. correct preposition by a ratio of 55-to-1, which is absolutely dreadful.

Solution:
“advised about”

“… 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”

“The DVD is due on next Sunday.”

Adverbs, Nouns, Prepositions

I heard this at Blockbuster Video over the weekend.

Problem:
The phrase “on next Sunday” did not sound right.

Explanation:
My wife and I were renting a DVD at a local Blockbuster Video store last Saturday evening.

Blockbuster has a seven-day return policy.

I was expecting the Blockbuster sales clerk to say one of the following:

  • “The DVD is due on Sunday, June 29.”
  • “The DVD is due next Sunday.”

So when I heard her say, “The DVD is due on next Sunday,” I was taken aback and began to wonder why “on next Sunday” was incorrect.

Here is what I realized:

  • The clerk wanted to say when the DVD was due.
  • Saying when is equivalent to modifying the verb “due” with an adverb or adverbial phrase.
  • “Sunday” is a noun.
  • One can combine the preposition “on” with the noun “Sunday” to get an adverbial phrase that says when.
  • The phrase “next Sunday” is already an adverbial phrase because it says when.
  • Therefore, it is a mistake to combine the preposition “on” with the adverbial phrase “next Sunday” in an attempt to get an adverbial phrase.

Solution:
“The DVD is due next Sunday.”