I said in part one of this tutorial that
English seemed easy but could sometimes disgrace a professor of English.
However, with constant study and determination, you can still speak and write
the language flawlessly more than its native speakers.
Today, I will be discussing with you
three grammatical blunders people confidently make due to ignorance. These
blunders include:
1. If you saw what God DID TO me, you
would have joined me to praise Him.
2. It is high time I STOP such nonsense.
3. It's been long I VISIT my mum.
Now let's see why they are
ungrammatical.
1. If you saw what God DID TO me, you
would have joined me to praise Him.
Structurally, sentence one is
grammatical but contextually ungrammatical. By structure I mean how the words
in the sentence are arranged whereas by context I mean the actual meaning of
the sentence.
Now, what you should know is that there
is a difference between 'did to' and 'did for.' If someone DID something TO
you, it simply means the person hurt or treated you badly but if someone DID
something FOR you, it means the person showed you favour or love; so if you
say, 'you are appreciating God for what He DID TO you,' it simply means
you are thanking God for hurting or treating you badly. The question is, can
God treat you badly? I am cocksure that is not what the person actually means
because nobody will appreciate anyone for hurting him/her. Sentence one is
correct in terms of the arrangement of the words that make up the sentence but
because what the speaker actually means is different from the actual meaning of
the sentence, the sentence is termed ungrammatical.
Therefore, the right thing to say is, '
If you saw what God DID FOR me, you would have joined me to praise Him.
On the other hand, if you are sure God
actually offended you(very impossible though), you can still say, 'If you saw
what God DID TO me, you would have joined me to praise Him.'
DID TO and DID FOR have
different forms depending on the sentence structure. These forms include:
I. Does to/Does for, e.g., He DOES many
despicable things TO her/ He DOES wonderful things FOR her.
2.Do to/Do for, e.g.,They DO wicked
things TO themselves/ They DO the house chores FOR their sister.
3.Done to/Done for, e.g., He has Done more
harm than good TO me/ For the good works He has DONE FOR me I will accord him
eulogies.
Now from the above sentences, you will
observe that all the ones with 'TO' have negative effect whereas all the ones
with 'FOR' have positive effect.
Now let's see our second sentence of
study:
2. It is high time I STOP such nonsense.
The sentence above is a very common
mistake among the learners and native speakers of English. I won't say much on
it so just know that anytime you make use of the word, 'high time' in a
sentence, the verb coming after it should be in its past tense.
Examples:
It is high time I WENT to school.
It is high time I VISITED my village.
It is high time I ran.
The sentence, 'It is high time I STOP
such nonsense' is wrong because the verb, 'stop' is in its present tense
instead of its past tense. Therefore, the right thing to say is,
It is
high time I stopped such nonsense.
Now let's see our third sentence of
study:
3. It's been long I VISIT my mum.
'It's been long' is just like a
substitute to 'high time.' Anytime you make use of 'It's been long' in a
sentence just like the one above, the verb coming after it should be in its
past tense.
Examples:
It's been long we PRAYED together.
It's been long I DID my morning
devotion.
Therefore, the correct answer to
sentence three is,
It's been long
I VISITED my mum.
SEE WHY THE VERB COMING AFTER 'HIGH
TIME' OR 'IT'S BEEN LONG' SHOULD BE IN ITS PAST TENSE.
'High time' and 'It's been long' are
just like 'Once upon a time.' Anytime you make a sentence like either of the
ones we've studied or its kind where you have either 'high time' and 'It's been
long,' it means that you want to tell us in the present what you used to do or
what you did in the past so the tense after it should be in its past form.
Anything outside this rule makes the sentence ungrammatical.