Past Participle

In Past Participle author Alexander Ihenetu
advises us to pay as much attention to our
English grammar and usage as we pay to
our sciences and mathematics. After all,
he reasons, in professional and educated
society, the most respected and confident are
quite often impeccable with their English.
He goes on to identify factors that negatively
affect our English usage and they include:
the multicultural and multiethnic nature of
our society; the notion that grammar does not matter as long as people
understand you; the polluting influence of street language; social media
communication styles ; rap song and slang terminology; lack of preparation
in classic Latin( the root of many English words and phrases); too much
watching of television at the expense of passionate reading of novels,
magazines and newspapers. Moreover, passage through high school and
college is not always a guarantee of literacy and good writing skills.
The author expresses surprise at the pervasive lack of use of the past
participle tenses of English verbs in todays society. He therefore puts much
emphasis on their accurate use through error examples, corresponding
explanations and relevant corrections and remarks. Using seven hundred
examples, he exposes widely-used expressions and phrases that abuse the
basic rules of English grammar and syntax, including errors of redundancy,
double negatives, subject and verb disagreement, nonstandard, colloquial
and informal usage, incomplete, awkward and illogical sentences, wrong
applications and wrong concepts, wrong spellings, non-existent words
and so on.