Find the Error 52
(Extract adapted from a catalogue of toys for children
published by a large retailer)
What kind of mistake do you see? (Choose one:)
- apostrophes
- articles
- doesn't make sense
- punctuation
- singular / plural
- spelling
Answer: apostrophes
According to this advertisement there is going to be just one child with really
active fingers this Christmas! The advert begins: 'Get the kid's little fingers
active this Christmas …', using 'kid' (which is singular) then the possessive
apostrophe 's'. The author implores us to get one kid's little fingers active,
rather than many kids' little fingers. It's hard to believe that this is what they
meant because it stands to reason that they would want to sell more than one
funky farm activity set. If we change the noun 'kid' to 'kids' (plural form) and
put the apostrophe after the plural form the sentence would be correct, and
would read: 'Get the kids' little fingers active this Christmas …' With plural
nouns like this it isn't necessary to use an 's' after the possessive apostrophe.
Look at this example: 'The car's wheels'. If we changed the singular noun
'car' to the plural 'cars', we wouldn't need to write: 'The cars's wheels' –
simply 'The cars' wheels' is enough.
Click here to download this page as a free .PDF worksheet
|
