Word Crimes

Crimes

When is it correct to say “If it was me”? It’s correct when you want to describe a real past situation you’re unsure about, as in “If it was me you heard on the stairs last night, I was just getting some water.” In this case, you are reasoning about a scenario that actually happened, so “was” is appropriate. Contrast that with “If it were me on the stairs, you would have heard something like the sound of stampeding elephants,” which is an imagined scenario that might occur but did not actually happen, hence the use of “were” instead of “was.”

If you frequently commit this crime read up on subject vs object pronouns.Purdue OWL: Pronoun Case You wouldn’t say Me go to the store on Tuesdays. In standard English, me is used as the object of a verb or preposition, not as the subject of a sentence. E.g “Don’t do that to me.”

Use ‘fewer’ with countable nouns, e.g fewer cars and ’less’ with uncountable nouns e.g less sand. Some argue that “ten items or less” is so common that it should be accepted. I look down on such people with great disdain and wish there were fewer of them.

“Could of” is a misspelling of the spoken contraction “could’ve,” which actually stands for “could have.” In standard English, we say “could have finished,” not “could of finished,” because “of” is a preposition, not a helping verb. So the correct sentence is “I could have finished earlier if I had started on time.”

This one is now up for debate. “their” is traditionally plural, but widely used now as singular they. One way to avoid this by making the antecedent plural as in “People should bring their laptops”.