However, there are many people who still are interested is speaking and writing properly, as indicated by the success of the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss, a number one British Bestseller.
In the book, Ms. Truss uses her urbane wit and humor to underscore a plethora of examples of punctuation mishaps anywhere from newspapers to street signs.
But there is more to poor grammar than punctuation. Many people today struggle over things that they learned in elementary school, but forgot long ago: what is the difference between “lay and “lie”? When do I use “fewer” instead of “less”? Is it “between you and me” or “between you and I”? Want to find out? Read on.
Let’s take “lay” and “lie”. It’s quite simple: lay means “to place or set”, as in the sentence, “May I lay this heavy package on the table?” The word lie means “to recline”, as in the sentence, “I need to lie down for a while”. Simple? Not quite.
The confusion, and the reason why most people say “lay down” instead, has to do with tenses. You see, the past tense of “lie” is, unfortunately, “lay”, and not “laid”. Therefore, if you are talking about yesterday, then you’d say, “I was so tired this afternoon that I lay down on the couch and fell asleep.” The confusion might be exacerbated by the fact that we often employ the word “down” in such sentences, so even when someone says it correctly, the “d” sound gets connected to the word “lay”. (Say “lay down” five times fast. Sound like “laid down”, doesn’t it?)
The usage of “fewer” and “less” is far less stressful since there are fewer variations. Use “fewer” when you are talking about numbers or amounts, and “less” when you are referring to a smaller extent or degree. Next time you are in the quick checkout line, look at the sign. Most say, “Ten items or less.” If it does you have every right to go to the store manager and complain. “Ten items or fewer” is actually correct. Also, “I am less agitated about improper grammar than I used to be” is an example of the use of “less”.
If you are of a certain age, you may remember your English teacher making you memorize a long list of prepositions. At the time, you probably saw it as a form of torture, but the teacher had a motive. It was so that you would know what pronoun to use after the preposition. Remember the “objective case”? Probably not. So, to make it simple, just remember this: after a preposition, use me, her, him, them, even if there is someone else in the phrase. Like this: “She came with Bob and me”. Yes, “me” is correct. You may hear people say, “…with Bob and I”, but that is wrong. You wouldn’t say, “She came with I”, would you? Only use the form, “Bob and I” if it’s the subject of the sentence or the predicate nominative. For example: “Bob and I were the winners” (subject). “The winners were Bob and I” (predicate nominative).
Here’s one tip: don’t rely on your computer’s grammar check feature. It’s correct far fewer times than correct, and less reliable than your dictionary.
