Find the Error 60
(Extract adapted from a promotional brochure produced by a national company)
What kind of mistake do you see? (Choose one:)
- apostrophes
- articles
- doesn't make sense
- punctuation
- singular / plural
- spelling
Answer: spelling
The spelling mistake in this example comes in the last sentence, where the
word 'past' should be spelled 'passed'. The words 'past' and 'passed' are
homophones, which means that they sound the same but have different
spellings and different meanings. 'Past' can be used as an adjective, adverb,
preposition or noun; for example, 'the past' (i.e. yesterday, last week, etc.) is
a noun (a thing). 'Passed' should be used here as a past participle verb – it
belongs to the present perfect verb phrase 'Sales have passed ...' The
sentence should read: 'Sales of his latest release, Never Be Lonely (When
You've Got A Friend), have now passed the 2 million mark in the UK alone.'
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