The most common grammatical error

The most common grammatical error has to do with the ability to count. Fortunately, you only have to be able to count more than 1.

If I write, “A man buys a house”, you can count the number of men: 1.

If I write “Men buy houses”, you should count more than 1 because this sentence describes more than 1 man.

Now, let’s take a closer look at these two samples.

In the first sentence, “A man buys a house”, the subject is 1 man, described as “a man”. The verb “to buy” ends with the letter “s”. When we conjugate verbs in the present tense, we can see that third person singular verbs end with the letter “s”.

First person, singular subject: “I buy.”

Second person, singular subject: “You buy.”

Third person, singular subject: “He buys.” (Notice the “s” at the end of the verb.)

What we have just learned is that if the subject is singular, the verb is also singular, that is, only one person or thing. Also, we see that the verb has an “s”.

In the second sentence, “Men buy houses”, we have more than 1 man, described as “men”. The subject is plural (more than 1), and the verb no longer has the “s”.

And this is where we get the most common grammatical error. The most common grammatical error is to use a singular subject (a person or thing) with a third person singular verb (the verb has the “s”) but then refer to the subject with a plural pronoun.

Perhaps an example will help here. Let’s build a sentence piece by piece and see what’s going on.

Wrong sentence start: “Everyone”: This is 1 person because it refers to each individual person, so it is singular.

Continuation of the incorrect sentence: “Everyone needs”: we add the verb in the third person singular, which has an “s”.

Incorrect sentence ending: “to spend your money wisely.” -The pronoun in this part is “their”, and it refers to the subject, “Everyone”. “Your” is a plural subject, which means it refers to more than 1 person.

Here is the full sentence with the grammatical error: “Everyone should spend their money wisely.” This sentence has a singular subject, a singular verb, and a plural pronoun. The problem is the pronoun.

For correct grammar, the pronoun must be plural or singular depending on the word it refers to. If it refers to a singular person or thing, it must be singular. If it refers to more than one person or thing, it must also be plural.

The correct pronouns that can refer to “everyone” in this sample are “his”, “she”, “his”, and “whose”. All of these are singular pronouns because they refer to 1 person or thing.

This morning, I was reading one of my favorite blogs, The Motley Fool, and came across this sentence: “Third, for someone who wants to maximize their time…” (http://www.fool.com/investing/general /2014/01/05/should-you-start-buying-stocks-in-2014-hers-what.aspx). Wow, it contains the most common grammatical error.

The faulty sentence contains a singular subject, “who”. We know “who” is singular because it refers to “someone”, which is singular. We also know that it is singular because it has a singular verb: “want”. The verb ends in “s”, so it is third person singular.

Thus, the award has a singular subject and a singular verb. Then we see the pronoun “their”. The pronoun is not singular; refers to more than 1 person. And this is the most common grammatical error.

To refer to the singular subject, the pronoun must also be singular. If we just change the pronoun to correct this sentence, we get these options.

“Third, for someone who wants to maximize their time…” (This is correct, but some people think using “su” is sexist, so it’s not a good option.)

“Third, for someone who wants to maximize their time…” (Same problem as the previous fix.)

“Third, for someone who wants to maximize their time…” (This doesn’t make sense. We don’t use “its” to refer to people.)

“Third, for someone who wants to maximize their time…” (This also doesn’t make sense.)

Then, what are we going to do? Correcting the grammatical error is simple.

If we want to use a plural pronoun, we need to have a plural subject and plural verb. Thus, we can change “someone” to “people” and change “want” to “want”. Here is the correct sentence:

“Third, for people who want to maximize their time…”

Now, the subject “who” is plural. We know that it is plural because it refers to the “people”. “People” is plural because it describes more than one person. We also know that it is plural because its verb is “want”, which no longer contains the “s”.

A plural pronoun (“their”) can only refer to a plural subject (“who”) that has a plural verb (“want”). Now that we have a plural subject and a plural pronoun, the sentence is correct.

Here’s the tip: If you use a plural pronoun, such as “they,” “their,” and “they,” mark the word it refers to. If the pronoun refers to more than 1 thing, it is correct. If it refers to 1 thing, the pronoun is wrong and you have made the most common grammatical error.

You can fix this error in two ways:

1. Make the pronoun singular (“Third, for someone who wants to maximize their time…”) or

2. Change the word that the pronoun refers to so that the pronoun refers to more than one thing (“Third, for people who want to maximize their time…”)

The “Concise Guide to Technical and Academic Writing” writing guide is a good source of information to help you understand and correct this and other common grammatical errors.