Question

Identify and correct the errors in the following sentences:
a) Neither the doctor nor the nurse are available.
b) The dog fell along the river.
c) Apples are not sweet as mangoes.
d) Helen is junior than me.
e) I have two brother in laws.

Answer 1

Hint: A sentence is a group of words grammatically arranged to be meaningful. It should be conveying us information.

Complete Solution:
From the hint given to us, we understand what a sentence is. We must understand that a sentence can have variable errors such as, use of inappropriate preposition, incorrect form of the verb, incorrect form of the noun, verb and noun not forming an agreement, etc. Now that we know about the possible errors in an English sentence, we shall be analysing the given incorrect sentences and correct them accordingly.

> “Neither the doctor nor the nurse are available,” We observe that the third person plural form of the auxiliary verb, be, is being used. We must understand that ‘nor’ indicates an alternative. The two nouns do not form a group but are individual alternatives to each other. Hence, the third person singular form of the auxiliary verb, be, must be used which is ‘is’. Thus, the correct sentence will be: “Neither the doctor nor the nurse is available.”

> “The dog fell along the river.” We observe that an unsuitable preposition has been used, that is, along. Along means next to something which does not match the context of the sentence. The correct preposition will be ‘into’ which means inside. Thus, the correct sentence formed is: “The dog fell into the river.”

> “Apples are not sweet as mangoes.” We observe that ‘as’ has been used as a conjunction which does not indicate a comparison but a cause. It is not suitable for the given context of the sentence. “As..as” is used to indicate a comparison between two nouns. Thus, the correct sentence formed is: “Apples are not as sweet as mangoes.”

> “Helen is junior than me.” We observe that in the given sentence comparative degree of adjective is not being used and hence, the use of ‘than’ is incorrect. It should be substituted with the preposition ‘to’ which is used to indicate the reference. Thus, the correct sentence formed is: “Helen is junior to me.”

> “I have two brother in laws.” We should know that it is the base noun which has to be made plural. However, we observe that it has not been done in this case and hence the sentence is incorrect. Thus, the correct sentence formed is: “I have two brothers in law.”
Note: While solving such questions you should be familiar with the syntactic rules of English. You should be observant enough to identify errors like- incorrect form of a verb, noun, adjective, preposition or conjunction. Such errors make a sentence incorrect and meaningless.