Month: January 2014

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Dr. John’s Grammar Quiz #35

Grammar Quiz #34 snuck beneath the radar of even our sharpest viewers. Three errors?  Yes, all having to do with redundancy. My “pet peeve” is, de facto, my favorite, no need to brand it so. ATM is the abbreviation for “Automatic Teller Machine.” PIN means “Personal Identification Number.” Our example was really saying, “Automatic Teller Machine machine” and  Personal Identification Number number.”.

Dr. John’s Grammar Quiz #35 Can you spot the glaring grammatical error in this sentence? “The basketball coach has encouraged his varsity players to hone in on the fundamentals and forget their so-called ‘trick plays.'” 

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Dr. John’s Grammar Quiz #34

Grammar Quiz # 33: Hats off to Marie G., a sharp-eyed grammarian and a person who obviously paid attention in geometry class. She pointed out that positions 360 degrees apart are not apart at all but point in exactly the same direction. The writer wanted “180 degrees.”

Dr. John’s Grammar Quiz #34 Can you spot the three glaring grammatical errors in this sentence? “My favorite pet peeve is people who stand there staring at the ATM machine while they try to remember their PIN number.”

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Dr. John’s Grammar Quiz #33

Grammar Quiz #32  While it’s true that finding a cure for the common cold would be “historical” if we’re talking about it happening in the past. However, a discovery of that magnitude would no doubt be dubbed “historic.”

Dr. John’s Grammar Quiz #33 Can you spot the glaring grammatical error in this sentence? “Timber industry officials often find it difficult to relate to environmental activists, and vice versa, since their positions are 360 degrees apart.”

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Dr. John’s Grammar Quiz #32

In Grammar quiz #31 Dr. John once again walks the thin line between perfection and picky. The dictionary defines “grammar” as “the study of how words and their component parts combine to form sentences.” Strictly speaking, that application was fraught with errors in punctuation.

Dr. John’s Grammar Quiz #32  Can you spot the glaring grammatical error in this sentence? “The discovery of a cure for the common cold, if and when it occurs, will certainly be touted as an historical event.” 

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Dr. John’s Grammar Quiz #31

Quiz #30 was a bit tricky. Stick with me here. We use “than” with comparative adjectives, as in “faster than,” “greater than.” etc. “Different” shows distinction, therefor, it takes the preposition, “from,”  e.g., “separate from,” “away from.”  That makes Fairbanks different from the sun belt states (though climate change has made them oddly similar lately).

Dr. John’s Grammar Quiz #31 Can you spot the glaring grammatical error in this sentence? “His application was fraught with grammatical errors: misplaced commas, missing periods and improper uses of the semicolon.” 

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Dr. John’s Grammar Quiz #30

Quiz #29, Two sharp readers nailed this one. Hats off to Cat and Ramos. The Quiz contained one of the most common mistakes editors encounter. Their responses tell the story. Cat suggest that if she was around the disgusting Ferris wheel guy, she would find him “nauseous.” Ramos suggests anyone who snarfed all the corn dogs and rode the Ferris wheel would no doubt feel “nauseated”. 

Just to clarify, “nauseous” means something that produces nausea in others. “Nauseated” is what you feel when you encounter something “nauseous.”  The corn dog incident, by the way, was taken from Dr. John’s real life. I was younger then, o.k.? 

Dr. John’s Grammar Quiz #30 Can you spot the glaring error in the following sentence? “The weather in Fairbanks seems always to be cold this time of year, far different than the sun belt states.”