How did I go? Are you enlightened now? If you’re interested, here’s a link for some more commonly confused words, a lot of which I have already covered:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/commonly-confused-words
And here’s another website for similar grammar related things if you’d like further clarification on things we've discussed:
http://www.drgrammar.org/frequently-asked-questions
Anyway, this page is more additional information and non-urgent things. Don’t forget to check out my Random Acts of Errors page too!
Still don’t believe me? Check out this humorous article from Hyperbole and a Half:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com.au/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html
Now’s a good time to take a rest and watch a video. This is taken from The Sketch Show.
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Okay so the next two things are things that yes, might be incorrect, but people usually aren't too anal about them…. I am of course referring to Who and Whom and Fewer and Less.
Who and Whom – This one is very tricky… If you’re referring to the subject of a sentence, use Who. If referring to the object of a sentence, use Whom. For example ‘Who is that strange man over there?’ and ‘I met a lovely Swedish lady while on holiday, whom I had a fling with’. How do you know which word to use? This is simple: rephrase your sentence so that you use ‘he/she’ or ‘him/her’. If you’re using ‘he/she’, this is the subject of the sentence therefore who is correct. If ‘him/her’, then it’s the object and thus whom is correct. Let’s use my above examples. ‘Who is that strange man over there?’ – He is the strange man over there. Therefore ‘Who’ is correct. ‘I met a lovely Swedish lady while on holiday, whom I had a fling with’ – I had a fling with her. The subject of the sentence is I and the lovely Swedish lady is the object, therefore she is the ‘Whom’.
Try this method yourself and you'll see it works. Honestly though, sometimes whom just sounds funny and you want to use who. Take this example for instance: ‘I have two children whom I love to bits.’ If you mess it up, don’t worry; I won’t hang you for it!
Let The Oatmeal explain further:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/who_vs_whom
We all know Ross from Friends is a bit of a grammar nerd too…
Who and Whom – This one is very tricky… If you’re referring to the subject of a sentence, use Who. If referring to the object of a sentence, use Whom. For example ‘Who is that strange man over there?’ and ‘I met a lovely Swedish lady while on holiday, whom I had a fling with’. How do you know which word to use? This is simple: rephrase your sentence so that you use ‘he/she’ or ‘him/her’. If you’re using ‘he/she’, this is the subject of the sentence therefore who is correct. If ‘him/her’, then it’s the object and thus whom is correct. Let’s use my above examples. ‘Who is that strange man over there?’ – He is the strange man over there. Therefore ‘Who’ is correct. ‘I met a lovely Swedish lady while on holiday, whom I had a fling with’ – I had a fling with her. The subject of the sentence is I and the lovely Swedish lady is the object, therefore she is the ‘Whom’.
Try this method yourself and you'll see it works. Honestly though, sometimes whom just sounds funny and you want to use who. Take this example for instance: ‘I have two children whom I love to bits.’ If you mess it up, don’t worry; I won’t hang you for it!
Let The Oatmeal explain further:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/who_vs_whom
We all know Ross from Friends is a bit of a grammar nerd too…
Fewer and Less – This one is also frequently misused. How many times have you been at the supermarket and seen ‘12 items or less’? It should read ‘12 items or fewer’. Why is this? The same reason you wouldn't say ‘I have much items in the back of the car’.
For count nouns (things that can be counted), we use fewer. ‘There were fewer visitors this year than we had last year’ and ‘If you’re hot, try wearing fewer layers of clothing’. For non-count nouns (things that cannot be counted), we use less. ‘This is less sugar than my order last time’ and ‘Less talk and more work!’
Once again, this is not as bad as everything else we’ve discussed so if you accidentally write less instead of fewer, you could probably get away with it. Unless Stannis Baratheon is in the room….
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On a sidenote, the music at the end of that video has been taken from "Weird Al" Yankovic’s song Word Crimes.