ESL Lesson Plan

...makes a grammatical error so memorable that, not only is it noticed, but it actually wins an 'award' for its bad grammar?

This is not a list of Chinglish or Spanglish errors; those would be understandable. At The Guardian website puts it; "The Idler Academy, an offshoot of the magazine which offers courses in everything from philosophy to ukulele playing, has announced the shortlist for its 2014 Bad Grammar award, set up to highlight "the incorrect use of English by people and institutions who should know better"."

Yes, they certainly should 'know better'.

Most of these are common grammatical errors - errors I see in student essays all the time. But don't these journals and agencies have editors?

You can see the original article and related links here - http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/28/bad-grammar-award-shortlist-english-language-nhs-tesco.

As you write (or read) be on the look-out for these simple and all-too familiar mistakes - especially those involving apostrophes and pronoun usage.

And, if you have any linguistic questions or disputes, please send them our way. We'll do our best to sort them out.

All I can say is, tread carefully through this language, and be sure to send me any language usages or historical nuances that interest you, and be sure to let me know what it is about language learning that you find confounding, infuriating or endlessly intriguing.

Listen, read and speak. Make your new language your own.

Morf