How to Improve Your Written English

Some Common Gramatical Mistakes and Tricks to Avoid Them

Feb 26, 2009

Many people are let down by their English. Sometimes you know how something is said, but not how it should be written. Here are some tips to help avoid common errors.

There are some words and phrases which you hear much more often than you see written down, and this sometimes means that people make mistakes when they come to write them.

Would Of or Would Have?

This rule applies to would, should, could or might. The trouble arises because, when spoken, "would've" (short for "would have") sounds almost exactly the same as "would of". However, although no-one may notice when you're speaking, if you write "would of" you make your mistake visible.

The easy way to work it out is to re-work the sentence so that it no longer contains "would" (or "should", etc.). If you can say "I should have gone." then you can say "I have gone." However, if the sentence was "I should of gone.", then the you should be able to say "I of gone.", which makes no sense.This is because "have" is a verb, so it is something you do, whereas "of" is not a verb.

Should, would, could and might will always appear with another verb. They change the meaning of the verb from something that definitely did happen into something more theoretical. So while you can write "should go...", "might wear...", "could say..." or use any other verb, you should never team up one of these words with the non-verb "of".

Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives

In brief, a noun is a thing, whether a solid thing you can touch like a table or a non-solid thing like love or the legal system; a verb is a doing or being word - things like go, is, liaise; an adjective is a word that describes a noun, such as big, inappropriate or minging.

Every Day or Everyday?

Some words sound the same but are actually written differently depending on whether they are nouns, verbs or adjectives. A good example is every day versus everyday. Day is a noun, and every is an adjective. Everyday, however, is just an adjective. Here is how you would use them. "It was an everyday occurence." "I go the gym every day."

In the first sentence you use everyday, without a space, because you are talking about the occurence, and you are describing it as everyday, or ordinary. In the second sentence you are saying that you go to the gym on days, and the type (or frequency) of day is every day. You could alternatively say "most days" or "one day a week" and this is why "day" and "every" are separate.

Another example is login versus log in. In this case login is a noun, while log in is a verb with a preposition (a word that describes direction or relationship, in this case "in".) Here is how you would use them. "I've forgotten my login." "I can't seem to log in."

The single word "login" describes a word which you use to gain access to the computer. The word "log" describes an action, and "in" (into the system) is the direction in which you are logging. You could also log out instead.

The Simple Rule for Everyday / Every Day

Too complicated? Yes, it is a very tricky thing to get right but there is a simple rule that can help you to know whether words like "everyday" and "login" should be written as one word or two in any given situation: Could you split them up by putting another word in-between?

For example, you can say "I'll log right in." but not "I've forgotten my log right in." You can say "I go the gym every second day." but not "It was an every second day situation." Use this rule before committing the word (or words) to paper and your written English will soon be improved.

The copyright of the article How to Improve Your Written English in Language & Style is owned by Karen Murdarasi. Permission to republish How to Improve Your Written English in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.