Mistakes will happen Feed 1

Common grammar mistakesEdit
Every so often we will deviate from the true path of studying pre-Pre-intermediate English (700 word English) to add something for advanced students. The column by Jon Gingerich January 31, 2012 at the "Lit-Reactor" website http://litreactor.com/columns/20-common-grammar-mistakes-that-almost-everyone-gets-wrong is an easy to read and useful guide to twenty common grammar mistakes which if you do not make them already are not too hard to master! Check out the rest of the site which is written for native speakers of English but could also do nicely for ourselves. Jon Gingerich does explain the ins and outs of the grammar. Let's add below some additional examples. Everyone can join in as this is an opentext collaborative page - just hit the edit button.

Who and WhomEdit

 * The man, who bit the dog, [made front-page news.]
 * The man, whom the dog bit, [did not even make page 13.] The man is now the object and target of the biting!
 * For whom the bell tolls (rings). For, from, with, by and similar words are followed by whom and not by "who". (by who!). By whom is the book "For whom the bell tolls"? SeeLitreactor for a grammatical explanation.

Which and ThatEdit

 * Archaeologists - searching for the first cities - looked for sites that had ceramic remains. That is, they restricted their search to such sites. The Caral site in Peru (5000 years old) showed no evidence of ceramics (3800 years old). For many years it was not excavated.
 * John Gingerich givesthe example: I don’t trust fruits and vegetables that aren’t organic.
 * Peru is a republic which was declared independent in 1821.