Dear fellow grammarians,
I wish to share with you two common errors in English. I used to make those errors in the past until I realised they were wrong.
1)The use of 'conducive'
The classroom should be a conducive environment for learning. (Wrong )
The classroom should be an environment conducive to learning. (Correct)
In other words, the adjective 'conducive' should be a postpositive adjective and not an attributive adjective. Do you agree? Please feel free to comment. :)
2) The use of 'give away' in prize presentations
We would like to invite our principal to give away the prizes to the winners of the Art competition. (Wrong)
We would like to invite our principal to present the prizes to the winners of the Art competition. ( Correct )
If we 'give away' an award, it simply means it is a gift and anyone can receive it; without much effort put in to get it.
However, if we 'present' an award, the award recipient is deserving of it as he/she has striven hard to achieve it.
Cheers,
Irene Ho
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Hi Irene,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing these. The "conducive" example in particular is great because the "wrong" variant is something we hear all the time. I'm pretty sure I've used it myself too! It's very useful for us to have this little reminder. :)