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There are ways of learning about the cuisine of northern India besides going there to watch the master chefs and learn their secrets—assuming they’re willing to share them. [expletive “there,” adverb “there,” possessive pronoun “their,” and contraction “they’re” inserted appropriately]

“There” as an adverb normally refers to a place; “there” can also be used as an expletive to introduce a clause, as in the first usage of the correction. (See Beginning With “It Is” or “There Is”: Advantages and Disadvantages in Chapter 18.) “Their” is a possessive pronoun meaning “belonging to them.” “They’re” is a contraction for “they are.”

Spelling/Diction Error: “Then” versus “Than”

If a person would rather break a law then obey it, than he or she must be willing to face the consequences.

Correction

If a person would rather break a law than obey it, then he or she must be willing to face the consequences. [comparative “than” distinguished from temporal “then”]

“Than” is a conjunction used with a comparison, for example, “rather X than Y.” “Then” is an adverb used to indicate what comes next in relation to time, for example, “first X, then Y.”

Spelling/Diction Error: “Effect” versus “Affect”

It is simply the case that BWEs adversely effect the way that readers judge what a writer has to say. It follows that writers who include lots of BWEs in their prose may not have calculated the disastrous affects of these mistakes.

Correction

It is simply the case that BWEs adversely affect the way that readers judge what a writer has to say. It follows that writers who include lots of BWEs in their prose may not have calculated the disastrous effects of these mistakes. [verb “affect” and noun “effects” inserted appropriately]

In their most common usages, “affect” is a verb meaning “to influence,” and “effect” is a noun meaning “the result of an action or cause.” The confusion of “affect” and “effect” is enlarged by the fact that both of these words have secondary meanings: the verb “to effect” means “to cause or bring about”; the noun “affect” is used in psychology to mean “emotion or feeling.” Thus, if you confuse these two words, you will inadvertently make a meaning radically different from the one you intend.

Test yourself 19.11: Spelling/Diction Errors

Make corrections as necessary in the following paragraph.

Its not sufficiently acknowledged that the behavior of public officials is not just an ethical issue but one that effects the sale of newspapers and commercial bytes in television news. When public officials don’t do what their supposed to do, than their sure to face the affects of public opinion—if they get caught—because there are dollars to be made. Its that simple: money more then morality is calling the tune in the way that the press treats it’s superstars.

GLOSSARY OF GRAMMATICAL TERMS

adjective An adjective is a part of speech that usually modifies a noun or pronoun— for example, blue, boring, boisterous.

adverb An adverb is a part of speech that modifies an adjective, adverb, or verb—for example, heavily, habitually, very. The adverbial form generally differs from the adjectival form via the addition of the ending “–ly”; for example, happy is an adjective, and happily is an adverb.

clause (independent and dependent) A clause is any group of words that contains both a subject and a predicate. An independent clause (also known as a main clause) can stand alone as a sentence. For example,

The most famous revolutionaries of this century have all, in one way or another, offered a vision of a classless society.

The subject of this independent clause is “revolutionaries,” the verb is “have offered,” and the direct object is “vision.” By contrast, a dependent (or subordinate) clause is any group of words containing a subject and verb that cannot stand alone as a separate sentence because it depends on an independent clause to complete its meaning. The following sentence adds two dependent clauses to our previous example:

The most famous revolutionaries of this century have all, in one way