Macmillan Heinemann English Language Teaching Between Towns Road, Oxford OX4 SPP. A division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 0 333 56734 X Text © Nigel Turton 1995, Design and illustration © Macmillan Publishers Limited 1995. Heinemann isa registered tradémark of Reed Educational and Professional Publishing Limited First published 1995 Alll rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied of transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed in Hong Kong 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 14°13 #12 °~«4141 10vii Introduction What Is the purpose of the book? The ABC of Common Grammatical Errors \s a practical reference book for learners and teachers of English as a second or foreign language. Its main purpose is to provide intermediate and advanced learners with easy access to the information they need in arder to correct their grammatical errors. Up until now, this information has been spread across grammar reference books, usage guides and learners’ dictionaries. In the ABC, itis available for the first time within a single volume. For teachers of English, the ABC provides a comprehensive checklist of learners’ grammatical errors, together with clear explanations of the relevant grammatical points. (See A note for teachers below.) Which errors are dealt with? The ABC deals with the grammatical errors that learners make again and again. It covers errors in system grammar and errors in word grammar. System grammar includes such areas as subject-verb agreement, tense use, the passive, question forms. Word grammar, sometimes called ‘usage’, consists of Tules that control the use of particular words. For example, we allow someone to do something, but we Jet someone do something (without fo). We hope that someone will do something, but we wish that someone would do something. We open our letters (with-s), but we open our mail (without -s). We can say ‘Itseems that she likes you’ but not ‘She seems that she likes you’. System errors and word errors are combined in the ABC within a single alphabetical arrangement. The ABC contains ‘common’ errors. A common error is one that is made frequently by learners of various language backgrounds. An error that is made, for example, only by Italian learners of English is not included. The errors have been gathered from a large corpus of written texts produced by learners at intermediate and advanced levels of proficiency. In view of this, proficiency range, some of the errors in the ABC may seem surprisingly elementary (e.g. ‘She live in Paris’ instead of ‘She lives in Paris’). It should be remembered, however, that even advanced learners sometimes make basic mistakes. The model of correct usage employed in the ABC is standard British English. Differences between British English and American English usage are described at the relevant entries. How do I find the information | need? When you need information about a word error, you look for the information in the same way that you would look for it when using a normal dictionary. For