Grammatical errors can be simply described
as errors in sentence patterns. A sentence is a unit of communication.
Communication may be ineffective if the speaker doe s not present his sentences
using the syntactic rules of English as S.V.O or S.V.C language.
Dale, P. (2008), grammatical errors is
where a sentence is structured incorrectly. He refers to this as an improper
grammar. In this chapter, various grammatical errors in the written exercises
of the selected Nigerian newspapers; the Guardian and Vanguard will be
identified. The second language learners are exposed to a lot of errors in
their publishment. Having gone through the written exercises of the Guardian and
Vanguard chosen for the purpose of this work, below is a list of some common
errors identified.
(i)
Punctuation errors
(ii)
Concord errors
(iii)
Errors of tense
(iv)
Errors of preposition
(i)
Punctuation
Errors
Punctuation is the use of sign or symbols
other than printed letters to indicate pause in written form and the rise and
fall of voices in spoken forms.
“Punctuation marks are used to enable us
to present four ideas clearly” Dale, G (2001, p. 8). Punctuation consist of
marks inserted to mark off words one from another either to show the
grammatical relationship or to give emphasis. Some marks such as the full stop
and the comma, merely indicate the length of a pause. Others like question
marks and exclamation marks indicate inflection of voice while signs for a
quotation and parenthesis serve to bring external matter into basic text.
However, punctuation marks should be used
only when they are necessary and there must be a good reason behind our choice
at any time. The main purpose at punctuation is to help to present your ideas
clearly and effectively. To achieve this, punctuation marks may be used only
when they are necessary. The following general rules about the punctuation
marks may therefore be made.
(i)
Use a few punctuation
marks as necessary. Be able to justify each mark used.
(ii)
Do not use punctuation
mark to compensate for bad sentence construction Oluikpe, B.O. (2003, p.125).
The common punctuation errors noticed in
the Nigerian Guardian Newspapers include the area of quotation mark,
capitalisation column and commas.
(i)
The quotation marks are
used to indicate a word or passage quoted from a pieces of writing.
(ii)
As a substitute for
italic in indicating the title of a book.
(iii)
To indicate that writer
is using a word.
The quotation mark (inverted comma) (“”) is
used to mark off dialogue in a sentence or passage containing words that are
not dialogue.
Only a word used by the speaker is
enclosed within the quotation marks.
Examples:
(a) When
the speech comes first e.g. “there is a policeman over there?” said jack. “Can you tell me the right time?” he asked.
(b) When
other words precede the speech “turn round” he said quietly. “You are standing
on my foot”.
Having gone through the written exercise
of Guardian Newspaper, they make catastrophic error: Refers to Palestinian
“Terrorists” without quotes. November 4, 2013.
Non capitalization of key letters in
sentence, proper nouns names of countries titles e.t.c written exercise in
English for the journalist to identify wrong non-capitalization of key letters
in the following sentences.
(i)
E.g. john has a shirt
(wrong)
John has a shirt
(right)
(ii)
lagos is a major town in
nigeria (wrong)
Lagos is a major town in Nigeria (right)
Wrong capitalization in the middle of
sentences:
E.g. Mary has a Brother called Teddy
(wrong)
Mary has a brother called Teddy (right)
The Book belong to peter (wrong)
The book belong to peter (right)
Comma: Non placement of commas in
sentences in itemizing e.g.
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