Common Errors(Contd)

Hello Everyone,
I have been fishing for more and more common errors in the general English that we write and speak and trust me, I feel this can go on forever. I mean, inspite of training for CAT for quite some time now, I still find so many peculiar grammar rules that do not have a reason...it's just the accepted norm or rule. Here are some examples to prove my consternation...COMMON ERRORS-Dose-II....

1)Emphasize on/Emphasis:

You can place emphasis on something, or you can emphasize it; but you can’t emphasize on it or stress on it, though you can place stress on it.

2)Espouse/Expound/Expand:

The meaning of “espouse” is “marry.” When you espouse an idea or cause in public you are proclaiming that you are promoting it as yours.
When you expound an idea you are explaining it. Theoretically you could expound an idea that you don’t personally espouse.

Most of the time in such contexts it would be more appropriate to use “expand on,” which means “to speak at length about.” “Expand” in this sense lacks the systematic analytical connotations of “expound.”
You never “espouse on” an idea; you just espouse it.

3)Lay/Lie:

You lay down the book you’ve been reading, but you lie down when you go to bed. In the present tense, if the subject is acting on some other object, it’s “lay.” If the subject is lying down, then it’s “lie.” This distinction is often not made in informal speech, partly because in the past tense the words sound much more alike: “He lay down for a nap,” but “He laid down the law.” If the subject is already at rest, you might “let it lie.” If a helping verb is involved, you need the past participle forms. “Lie” becomes “lain” and “lay” becomes “laid”: “He had just lain down for a nap,” and “His daughter had laid the gerbil on his nose.”

4)Majority is/Majority are:

“Majority” is one of those words that can be either singular or plural. If you mean the word to describe a collection of individuals, then the word should be treated as plural: “The majority of e-mail users are upset about the increase in spam.” If the word is used to describe a collective group, then consider it singular: “A 90% majority is opposed to scheduling the next meeting at 6:00 A.M.”

5)Ascribe/Subscribe
If you agree with a theory or belief, you subscribe to it, just as you subscribe to a magazine.
However, if you ascribe a belief to someone, you are attributing the belief to that person, perhaps wrongly.

6)Lighted/Lit
Don’t fret over the difference between these two words; they’re interchangeable.

7)Under the guise that/of
My Uncle tried to rob my jewellery under the guise of securing my possessions. There are many other alternatives to this phrase like "excuse that", "under the pretext that", but "under the disguise" requires the preposition "of" , usually followed by a gerund.

8)Within / Among
“Within” means literally “inside of,” but when you want to compare similarities or differences between things you may need “among” instead. It’s not “There are some entertaining movies within the current releases,” but “among the current releases.” But you can use “within” by rewriting the sentence to lump the movies together into a single entity: “There are some entertaining movies within the current batch of releases.” A batch is a single thing, and the individual films that make it up are within it.

9)Sergeant at arms/sergeant of arms
A Serjeant at Arms (also spelled Sergeant at Arms) is an officer appointed by a deliberative body usually a legislature, to keep order during its meetings. The word serjeant is derived from the Latin "serviens", which means "servant".

10)Substitute for/ with
You can substitute almonds for the berries in a brownie recipe, but many people mistakenly say “substitute with” instead, perhaps influenced by the related expression “replace with.” It’s always “substitute for.”


Phew...these sessions really leave me a little amazed at the end of it. Will keep all of you posted on more such errors but next time I shall be back with some dope on "phrasal verbs"!!!! Till then, please keep solving as many sentence correction questions as possible, since with CAT going online, this area needs serious attention.

Au Revoir!!!