Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Silly Grammar Mistakes

Is the below statement correct?

Mr.X is married with two daughters

I initially though it is incorrect but a bit of Grammar Rules clears that YES, it’s correct!

How?

As per the English Grammar, the verb phrase is to be married to. With the noun, you have the option of using with or to.

Examples

Mr.X has a happy marriage with/to his friend’s cousin. (Marriage is the noun here.)

S.No Statement Meaning
1 Mr.X is married with his two daughters Mr.X is the husband of two daughters (the statement does not clarify whose daughters are they)
2 Mr.X is married with two daughters Mr.X is married and living with his two daughters (the statement does not clarify who is the wife of Mr.X)
3 Mr.X is married to two daughters Same meaning as statement 1

All that glitters is not gold

Similarly, not everything that sounds correct is correct. For example, how many times have you seen people using these phrases?

  • “I can’t able to do it”, - Can’t itself shows the inability. What is the word “able” doing there?
  • “This looks much more better”, - Better itself is a comparative degree, do we really need a “more”?
  • “Did you went to office today?”  - Should we be using past tense verbs for a sentence beginning with “Did”?
  • We have less cars for sale now than last month – Less or Fewer??
  • Many more happy returns of the day – This is very common. I myself use it at times. MORE should not be preceded by MANY.
  • “… and many more features” – same as above
  • These all are useless – ALL is not at all needed there. This is because of the mother tongue influence. (In Tamil we say, Iwai anaithum. Similarly in Hindi, “Ye sab”)
  • I am having two daughters – Should it not be “I have two daughters”?

These are widely used these days and are 100 percent incorrect! Just because everyone is using and it sounds correct, it does not mean it is correct! Let’s try to correct ourselves :)

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