A Word, Please: English users need to rein in the mistakes

The hardest thing about English grammar isn’t grammar. Not in the strictest sense of the word, anyway. Narrowly speaking, grammar has to do with the way we order and inflect words to make sentences.

That is, we take a subject and pair it with a verb, ensuring that the verb matches the person and also reflects the time period. Then we make sure they’re all in the right order. You take “yesterday” and “visiting” and yourself and “Mary” and get “I visited Mary yesterday.” This is also called syntax.

Considering the complexity of language, it’s astounding how often English speakers use grammar perfectly. No sober person says, “Visited I yesterday Mary” or “Have visiting yesterday I been Mary.”

Nope, in all but a few difficult situations, we nail the syntax with ease.

At the same time, English is extremely difficult. But that has less to do with the way we arrange the words and more to do with the words themselves. In the realm of usage (which, technically, we can include under the umbrella of “grammar”), it’s astounding how many words native English speakers get wrong.

For example, AOL recently ran this headline: “Rupert Murdoch plans to hand Fox reigns to sons.” It’s similar to another error I see a lot: “We need to reign in our spending.”

In both cases, the writer wanted “rein.” To hand reins to someone means to hand over control. Reins are part of a horse’s bridle used to steer the animal. Similarly, to rein in spending means to pull back, as you would on the reins of a horse to get it under control. Neither contains the letter G.

To reign, on the other hand, is to rule like a king or queen. This can also be a noun, as in a king’s reign, which gives the AOL headline writers just enough leeway to slither out of their mistake: They could argue that they meant Murdoch’s rule or his sovereignty or his control. But because it was in the plural, “reigns,” that would be a flimsy excuse.

“Reign” and “rein” are just two of the words that people often get wrong. Have you ever read about a bride heading to the alter? How about someone reporting about multiple incidence in which he found it hard to breath? Or how about someone who wants to forgo writing on stationary and instead envelope herself in the affects of the liquor she had just drank? Alter, incidence, breath, forgo, stationary, envelope, affects and drank are all wrong here, or at least wrong-ish. Here’s what you need to know to use them right.

Alter. This is a verb meaning to change. The place where people get married or make sacrifices is an altar.

Forgo. For the verb that means to do without, you must do without the letter E. To forego means to go before.

Breath. This noun rhymes with death. The verb rhymes with seethe and adds an E: breathe.

Stationary. This adjective means unmoving. Paper and envelopes are stationery.

Incidence. This singular noun sounds like the plural noun incidents. But the one without the S at the end isn’t plural.

Envelope. Don’t confuse this piece of stationery with the verb that means to surround or enclose. That word has no E at the end: The fog will envelop you.

Affect. This is usually a verb: Caffeine doesn’t affect me. The noun begins with an E: Caffeine has some powerful effects.

Drank. Some irregular verbs use different forms for the simple past tense and the past participle: Ate, eaten. Forgot, forgotten. Hid, hidden. Chose, chosen. For some verbs, it’s common to mistakenly use the simple past tense as the past participle: “I have drank.”

But the preferred past participle of “drink” is “drunk.” “Today, I drink. Yesterday, I drank. In the past, I have drunk.” You can eke by with “drank” as a past participle, but the dictionary warns that it’s informal and therefore not great in print.

JUNE CASAGRANDE is the author of “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” She can be reached at [email protected].