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Grammar goofs - Archives

Goof #3:

“I thought to myself” - - Who else are you going to “think to”?

Correcting the goof:

“I thought,” “I said to myself,” “I muttered to myself,” or “I scolded myself”

 

Goof #2: The abuse of “literally”

From a TV commercial touting a draft stopper for doors:

“Your money literally flies out the door.”
 

REALLY? Do folks actually see paper money flying out their doors? Only if the door’s open and a handful of cash is tossed out into the wind!

“Do not use literally when you mean metaphorically; it’s the exact opposite. Literally means something that happened exactly as described. ‘Kim literally destroyed him with a look.’ Probably not, unless her look put him out of existence.” (Source: The Little Style Guide to Great Christian Writing and Publishing by Leonard G. Goss and Carolyn Stanford Goss, p. 104)

A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable (Goss, p. 107). It is an implied comparison in which one thing is described in terms of another. For example, “Daniel was a hungry lion, devouring everything on his plate within a minute.” Daniel was not literally a lion; he is compared to a lion. So “Daniel was a hungry lion” is a figure of speech, a metaphor.

Folks using the word literally when they mean figuratively/metaphorically irks me to no end. Tune your ears to the spoken language and take note of how ridiculous it is when “literally” is misused.

Correcting the goof:  DON’T EVEN SAY IT!

NO: “a literal flood of abuse”           YES:  “a flood of abuse”

NO: “literally dead with fatigue”      YES: “almost dead with fatigue”
 

Goof # 1: Misplaced modifiers

From a local radio station’s online news email:

“Walker was charged with burglary, trespass, and other charges in connection with Walker breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s apartment and videotaping an intimate moment she was having with his cell phone camera.”

My, that must be some cell phone camera! The technology these days . . .
 

Correcting the goof:

It has to do with the placement of modifiers. A modifier is a word or phrase that describes, or modifies, another word. A modifier that describes, or modifies, a noun is an adjective; a modifier  that describes or modifies a verb, adjective, or adverb is an adverb.

Modifiers can be single words or phrases, but they should be placed next to the word they modify. When they aren’t, they are called misplaced modifiers, and can create some pretty hilarious sentences.

In the above gaffe, “with his cell phone camera” is meant to modify the verb “videotaping.” In other words, he was charged with using his cell phone to videotape an intimate moment his girlfriend was having. Placing the phrase at the end of the sentence, next to the verb “having,” makes it modify “having.” You get the gist.

Encountered any misplaced modifiers lately? Email them to me, along with any grammar or writing questions you have. I’ll answer them here.