Grammar Mistakes Even Smart People Make

By guest author Logan Strain

A lot of fitness business owners assume because I earned my degree in English that I am some sort of super-stickler when it comes to grammar. Not true. Split infinitives don’t phase me. I care very little when I come across a dangling preposition. And if you can’t navigate the distinction between alumnus, alumni, alumna, and alumnae, welcome to the club.

Still, my inner pendant still cringes when I come across a few errors that pop up disturbingly frequently in copy.

Most notably:

Less/Fewer – Fewer is used when the objects are theoretically countable, such as cards, dollar bills or grains of sand. Fewer is used when the object is not countable, which means objects in bulk such as time, money, or sand. To clarify, if you have less sand, then you have fewer grains of sand.

Affect/Effect – Affect means to produce an influence. Effect refers to the result of something. Usually, affect is a verb and effect is a noun. So you might say “The shredder affected the paper. The effect destroyed it.”

Hyphens- Hyphens should be used in the following instances

Between the ten and units in numbers (forty-eight, five hundred sixty-two)
Between a prefix and a proper noun (pre-Columbian)
In compound words (Don’t eat diet-destroying foods.)

There are more, but these ones get skipped most often.

“Concerted effort” - People always seem to think this means “trying really hard” or something. Really this means an effort that it is done “in concert,” meaning there are several people working together. A single person can’t make a “concerted effort.”

i.e. / e.g. - These Latin abbreviations are not interchangeable. “i.e.” means “that is,” or in other words. “e.g.” means “for example.”

Of course, if you write copy you already know that you should bone up on grammar not for the 95% of the population that don’t care, but for the 5% who do.

This has been and grammar and personal trainer markeing post by guest author Logan Strain

Note from Chris - I am guilty as charged… Readers I'd love your input. If you're reading a salescopy or a blog, what level of these kinds of farts in grammar and pillaging of our language are you willing to put up with before the writer looks stupid. I know I make a ton. Let us know your thoughs…