The document provides an overview of common grammar errors, specifically focusing on deviant usage that can affect writing quality. Key topics include misplaced modifiers, dangling modifiers, comma splices, split infinitives, pronoun-antecedent agreement, and more, with explanations and corrections for each type of error. The goal is to help writers avoid these pitfalls to enhance clarity and coherence in their writing.

1. LECTURE 1
Overview of Grammar: Deviant
Usage and Common Errors
Adika (2011); Bailey (2015, pages 142-146)

2. DEVIANT USAGE AND COMMON ERRORS
The use of words and expressions
that depart from accepted practice.
When such wrong usage become
persistent the quality of your writing
suffers.
This lecture seeks to draw your
attention to such errors with the view
to helping you to avoid them.

3. Outline
 Misplaced modifiers
 Dangling modifiers
 Comma splices
 Split infinitives
 Pronoun-antecedent agreement
 Rambling sentences
 Double subject
 Sentence fragments
 Parallel structures
 Subject-verb agreement
 Confusing words

4. Misplaced modifiers
 A misplaced modifier is a word, phrase
or clause that is improperly separated
from the word it modifies or describes.
 Simply put, a word or a phrase
apparently modifying an unintended
word because of its placement in a
sentence.
 Sentences with this error often sound
awkward and confusing.

5. Example:
 E.g.1) On her way home, Akosua
found a gold man’s watch.
 The sentence above would suggest
that a gold man owns a watch.
 Misplaced modifiers are usually
corrected by moving the modifier to a
more appropriate place in the
sentence, generally next to the word it
modifies.

6. Example:
 E.g. 2) On her way home, Akosua
found a man’s gold watch.
 The modifier ‘gold’ has now been
placed next to the word it modifies,
that is ‘watch’.
 We can now say the modifier has
been correctly placed.

7. There are several kinds of
misplaced modifiers.
 Misplaced adjectives
 Misplaced adverbs
 Misplaced phrases
 Misplaced clauses

8. Misplaced adjectives
 They are incorrectly separated from
the nouns they modify and almost
always distort the intended meaning.
 E.g. 3) Kweku ate a cold dish of cereal
for breakfast.
 The word ‘cold’ is a misplaced
adjective that modifies the noun ‘dish’.

9. Correction
 The error of a misplaced adjective is
corrected by placing the adjective next
to the noun it modifies.
 E.g. 4) Kweku ate a bowl of cold
cereal for breakfast.
 The word ‘cold’ is now a correctly
placed adjective that modifies ‘cereal’.
 Sentences like these are common in
everyday speech.

10. Placement of adverbs
 Wrongly placed adverbs in a sentence
can change the meaning of the
sentence.
 E.g. 5) We ate the lunch that we
bought slowly. (incorrect)
 This sentence suggests that ‘we
bought lunch slowly’.

11. Placement of adverbs
(correction)
 To correct the meaning, move the
adverb ‘slowly’ near or next to the verb
‘ate’.
 E.g. 6) We slowly ate the lunch we
bought. (correct)
 Watch out for adverbs such as only,
just, nearly, and almost. They are
often misplaced and cause an
unintended meaning.

12. Misplaced phrases
 This may cause a sentence to sound
awkward and may create a meaning
that does not make sense.
 E.g. 7) Adwoa sold the food to ‘the
customer with fresh meat’.
 This sentence implies that the
customer has a skin made of fresh
meat or…
 To clarify the meaning, put the phrase
next to the noun they are supposed to
modify.

13. Misplaced phrases
(correction)
 E.g. 8) Adwoa sold the ‘food with fresh
meat’ to the customer.
 The dealer sold the Cadillac to ‘the
buyer with leather seats’. (incorrect)
 The dealer sold ‘the cadillac with
leather seats’ to the buyer. (correct)

14. Dangling modifiers
 When a modifier occurs without the
item that it modifies, it is referred to as
a dangling modifier.
 That is, the item to be modified is
missing from the clause or sentence.

15. Dangling modifiers
 E.g. 9) When nine years old, my
mother enrolled in medical school.
‘When nine years old’ is a dangling
modifier.
 Eg 10) Walking to the movies, the
cloudburst drenched Jim.
This sentence suggests that ‘the
cloudburst is walking to the movies’
even though a possible walker Jim is
mentioned.

16. How to correct dangling
modifiers.
 Dangling modifiers can be corrected in
two general ways.
Correction method 1
 Leave the modifier as it is.
 Change the main part of the sentence
so that it begins with the term actually
modified.
 This change will put the modifier next
to the term it modifies.

17. Dangling modifiers
 E.g. 11) Walking to the movies, the
cloudburst drenched Jim. (incorrect)
 E.g. 12) Walking to the movies, Jim
was drenched by the cloudburst.
(correct)

18. Dangling modifiers
Correction method 2
 Change the dangling modifier phrase to
a subordinate clause, creating a subject
and verb.
 Leave the rest of the sentence as it is.
 E.g. 13) When nine years old, my mother
enrolled in medical school. (incorrect)
 E.g. 14) When I was nine years old, my
mother enrolled in medical
school.(correct)

19. Comma splices
 Two sentences or independent
clauses that are incorrectly joined by a
comma.
 E.g. 15) The internet has made the
world smaller, you can meet people
everywhere.

20. Three options for comma splice
revision
 A) Use a comma and a coordinating
conjunction (and, or, nor, so, yet etc.).
 E.g. 16) The internet has made the
world smaller, so you can meet people
everywhere.
 B) Use a semicolon.
 E.g. 17) The internet has made the
world smaller; you can meet people
everywhere.

21. Comma splices (
continuation)
 C) Treat the clauses as separate
sentences.
 E.g. 18) The internet has made the
world smaller. You can meet people
everywhere.

22. Split infinitives
 A split infinitive is a grammatical
construction in which a word or phrase
divides the to and the bare infinitive
verb.
 The infinitive of a verb is the form
given in the dictionary where no
specific subject is indicated. In
English, it is always characterized by
the word ‘to’. E.g., to play, to bribe, to
eat, to find, to laugh.

23. Split infinitives (continuation)
 A split infinitive occurs when the ‘to’ is
separated from its verb by other
words.
 Usually, it is sufficient to move the
offending word so it comes either
before or after the infinitive.
 E.g. 19) Kwame’s teacher told him to
never look back. (incorrect)
 E.g. 20) Kwame’s teacher told him
never to look back. (correct)

24. Split infinitives examples
 E.g. 21) She told me I had to quickly
finish the sandwich. (incorrect)
 E.g. 22) she told me I had to finish the
sandwich quickly. (correct)
 E.g. 23) I was told to always pay
attention in class. (incorrect)
 E.g. 24) I was told always to pay
attention in class. (correct)

25. Clear pronoun reference
 A pronoun is a word used to stand for
or take the place of a noun.
 A pronoun should refer clearly to one,
unmistakable noun coming before the
pronoun. This is called pronoun
antecedent.
 It is very easy to create a sentence
that uses a pronoun without a clear,
unmistakable noun antecedent.

26. Clear pronoun reference
(E.g.)
 E.g. 25) After putting the disk in the
cabinet, Kwame sold it.
 The pronoun ‘it’ does not have a clear
noun antecedent.
 As a result, the reader cannot know
for sure whether Kwame sold the disk
or the cabinet.
 Such errors, called faulty or vague
pronoun reference can confuse
readers and obscure intended
meaning.

27. Clear pronoun reference
 There are three major pronoun
reference errors:
Too many antecedents
Hidden antecedents
No antecedent at all.

28. Too many antecedents
 A pronoun should have only one
antecedent. The antecedent should be
clear and unmistakable.
 E.g. 25) Take the radio out of the car and
fix it.
 Anyone who reads this sentence would
not know exactly which item to be fixed.
 In the above example, faulty or vague
pronoun reference occurs because the
pronoun ‘it’ has two possible noun
antecedents.

29. Too many antecedents
To fix the problem:
A) Substitute a noun for the pronoun
and
B) Rephrase the sentence.
 E.g. 26) Take the radio out of the car
and fix the radio.
Or
 E.g. 27) Take the radio out of the car
and fix the car.

30. Hidden antecedents
 Faulty pronoun reference errors also
occur when the pronoun’s antecedent
functions as an adjective rather than a
noun.
 In such cases, the true antecedent is
hidden or obscured from the reader
because it has been subordinated to
another noun.

31. Hidden antecedents (E.g.)
 E.g. 28) The fufu dish was empty, but
we were tired of eating it anyway.
 We might think that the fufu dish was
being eaten because ‘dish’ appears to
be the antecedent for the pronoun ‘it’.
 E.g. 29) The fufu dish was empty, but
we were tired of eating fufu anyway.

32. Pronoun antecedents
 A pronoun can fall either before or
after the noun it refers to. If the
pronoun comes afterward, the noun it
refers to is called the antecedent. The
antecedent of any sentence must be
clear for readers to easily
comprehend.

33. Errors relating to pronoun
antecedents.
 Ambiguous pronouns
 Absent antecedents
 Loose antecedents

34. Ambiguous pronouns
 One error is using a pronoun when the
antecedent is unclear.
 E.g. 30) Akosua discussed the new
strategy with Jill. She decided to
proceed as planned. Who decided to
proceed as planned?
 E.g. 31) After she discussed the new
strategy with Jill, Akosua decided to
proceed as planned.

35. Absent antecedents
 E.g. 32) Kojo says the course is fun to
teach because it’s small, and they are
motivated.
 ‘they’ presumably refers to students,
but the antecedent noun is absent.
 E.g. 33) Kojo says the course is fun to
teach, because it’s small and the
students are motivated. (correct)

36. Loose antecedents
 A common pronoun reference error is
having a pronoun such as ‘this’, ‘that’,
‘it’ or ‘which’, referring loosely to an
idea expressed, rather than to a
specific noun.
 E.g. 34) The company concealed
financial losses. This caused investors
to damp the stock.
 E.g. 35) The company concealed
financial losses. That caused investors
to dump the stock.

37. Loose antecedents
 E.g. 36) The company concealed
financial losses. It caused investors to
dump the stock.
 In these sentences, note the lack of
specific antecedent noun for ‘this’, ‘that’,
and ‘it’
 Corrected.
 The company concealed financial losses.
This accounting fraud caused investors
to dump the stock.
 The pronoun ‘this’ clearly refers to the
noun ‘fraud’.

38. Rambling sentences
 Rambling sentences are sentences
that contain several clauses
connected by coordinating
conjunctions such as ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘but’,
‘yet’, ‘nor’, and ‘so’.
 A rambling sentence may appear to
follow the technical rules of grammar
but the sentence as a whole is wrong
because it rambles or runs-on.

39. Rambling sentences
 E.g. 37) I wanted to eat fried rice but I
realised that my money wasn’t enough
so I thought about buying yam but
then I realised that I didn’t feel like
eating yam but I felt like eating rice so
I walked back to my hostel for some
money and I then realised that I had
left my key in school so I was
confused so I was very hungry and I
didn’t know what to do.

40. Rambling sentences
 Rambling sentences as we saw above
are exceedingly long and contain too
many independent clauses.
 The purpose of a sentence is to state
a single idea or a small set of related
ideas.
 A rambling sentence states many
ideas.
Correction.
Take out all the coordinating
conjunctions that separate complete,

41. Double subjects
Sentences that contain double subjects
 This error is mostly committed in our
speech language.
 E.g. 38) My hometown it is very big.
 In this sentence, ‘it’ is a pronoun which
represents ‘my hometown’
 It is not correct to use both in the
sentence.
 E.g. 39) My hometown is very big.

42. Double subjects (Other
examples)
 E.g. 40) My sister she is a nurse.
(incorrect)
 E.g. 41) My sister is a nurse. (correct)
 E.g. 42) The mountains we visited
them were beautiful. (incorrect)
 E.g. 43) The mountains we visited
were beautiful. (correct)

43. Sentence fragments
 Sentence fragment refers to a group of
words that looks like a sentence, but is
not. To qualify as a sentence, a group of
words needs to have at least one
independent clause.
 An independent clause is any group of
words that contains both a subject and a
verb and can stand on its own.
 Sentence fragments never have
independent clauses, but have
dependent clauses or phrases.

44. Sentence fragment
 They can look like real sentences
because they begin with a capital
letter and end with a period.
 Fragments do not form a complete
thought.
 A sentence fragment is like having
only half of the pieces to a puzzle.
Without all the pieces, you will not
have the whole picture.

45. Sentence fragment
Where they are found
 They usually appear before or after
the independent clauses to which they
belong.
 E.g. 44) When we got in the car. We
rolled down the window.
 ‘When we got in the car’ is a sentence
fragment; it is dependent on the
independent clause that follows it.

46. Sentence fragment
Correction:
 E.g. 45) When we got in the car, we
rolled down the window. (correct)

47. Subject-verb agreement
 One important rule to remember when
forming sentences is to make subjects
and verbs agree.
 While this seems like an apparent or
obvious rule, it is often overlooked.
 We will discuss simple rules for
remembering how subjects and verbs
should agree.

48. Subject-verb agreement
1) A singular subject always takes a
singular verb. Use either the –s or –es
ending of the present tense of a verb
when the subject is in the third person.
 E.g. 46) The cat plays with the toy.
 E.g. 47) The girl wishes for a doll on
her birthday.

49. Subject-verb agreement
2) A plural subject always takes a
plural verb.
 E.g. 48) The dogs play in the yard.
When using compound subjects, a
plural verb is used with a compound
subject.
 E.g. 49) A dog and a cat are usually
enemies.

50. Subject-verb agreement
An exception to the rule above is
when the compound subject conveys
a singular idea.
 E.g. 50) The athletic trainer and
graduate student is Bill Smith.
When the compound subject contains
‘or’, ‘nor’, ‘neither...nor’, ‘not…but’,
‘not only…but also’, make the verb
agree in number and in person with
the nearer subject.

51. Subject-verb agreement
 E.g. 51) Neither the windows nor the
door needs to be painted.
 E.g. 52) Not the builder but the maids
clean the house.
3) Verbs always agree with the subject
in the sentence even if there is a
phrase or clause between them.
 E.g. 53) The trees as well as the
shrubbery are losing their leaves.

52. Subject-verb agreement
 E.g. 54)The doctor in addition to his
nurses has the night off.
 E.g. 55) The farmer along with the cows
rises early.
4) There are two rules to remember
when referring to groups.
 Use a singular verb when the subject is a
collective noun which is referring to the
group as a unit. Such collective nouns
name a group or class: congregation,
flock, jury, family.

53. Subject-verb agreement
 E.g. 56) The congregation is made up
of Christians.
An exception is made when using
scissors or trousers which both take a
plural verb except when used after
‘pair’
 E.g. 57) The scissors are on the table.
 E.g. 58) The pair of scissors is blunt.

54. Subject-verb agreement
5) When using indefinite pronouns,
use singular verbs. Such indefinite
pronouns include: anybody, anyone,
each, either, everybody, everyone,
neither, somebody.
 E.g. 59) Everyone in the room smells
the disgusting odour.
 E.g. 60) Neither was charged with the
crime.

55. Parallel structure/parallelism
 The balance of two or more elements
in a sentence
 Elements in a sentence are parallel
when one construction (or one part of
speech) matches another: a phrase
and a phrase, a clause and a clause,
a verb and a verb, a noun and a noun
and so forth.

56. Parallel constructions
Parallel structures or constructions occur
with coordinating conjunctions. (and, or,
nor, but, yet)
Parallel constructions:
 E.g. 61) At University of Ghana, cheating
can result in suspension or even
expulsion from school.
Underlying Structure: At University of
Ghana, cheating can result in (noun) or
even (noun) from school.

57. Parallel constructions with
coordinating conjunctions
Non parallel structures:
 E.g. 62) At University of Ghana, cheating
can result in suspension or even be
expelled from school.
 Underlying structure: At University of
Ghana, cheating can result in (noun) or
even (verb phrase)

58. Parallel constructions with
correlative conjunctions
 Correlative conjunctions (e.g.:
either/or, neither/nor, not only/but also,
both/and, whether/or)
Not parallel:
 E.g. 63) Selasi is not only very
beautiful but also is very intelligent.
 The words very beautiful directly
follow not only, so very intelligent
should follow but also. Repeating the
extra verb creates an unbalanced
effect.

59. Parallel constructions with
correlative conjunctions
Parallel construction:
 E.g. 64) Selasi is not only very
beautiful but also very intelligent.

60. Parallel construction in a
series
Not parallel:
 E.g. 65) The two girls enjoyed
dancing, swimming and going to the
mall.
 Underlying structure: The two girls
enjoyed (noun), (noun), and (verb
phrase).

61. Parallel construction in series
Parallel:
 E.g. 66) The two girls enjoyed
dancing, swimming and shopping.
 Underlying structure: The two girls
enjoyed (noun), (noun) and (noun).

62. Three-step method to parallelism
 What part of speech is being used? Is
it a noun, a verb or a phrase?
 In what form or tense does the part of
speech exist?
 How can I convert the items in the
sentence into the grammatical format?

63. Confusing words
Words that sound confusing
 Examples
 A) Accept / Except
 Accept is a verb meaning to receive.
 Except is usually a preposition that
denotes exclusion.
B) Affect / Effect
 Affect is a verb that means to influence
 Effect is either a noun meaning result or
it is a verb meaning to bring about.

64. Confusing words
(continuation)
 Farther / further
 Farther usually describes distance.
 Further suggests a quantity or degree.
 Fewer / less
 Fewer refers to items that can be
counted.
 Less refers to items that cannot be
counted.

65. Confusing words
(continuation)
Who’s / whose
 Who’s is a contraction of ‘who is’.
 Whose is a possession pronoun.
Your / you’re
 Your is possessive
 You’re is a contraction of ‘you are’.
Loose / lose
 Loose is an adjective meaning ‘not
secure’.
 Lose is a verb meaning the opposite of
win. Lose also means ‘misplace’.

66. REFERENCES
 Adika, G. S. K. (2011). Deviant usage
and confusing words. Accra: Black
Mask.
 Quirk, R. & Greenbaum, S. (1973). A
university grammar of English.
Longman.
 http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills
/learningoral
 http://people.ucsc.edu/~pullum/golden
rules.html
 http://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/ho