There are certain things that I get asked time and time again by students so I thought I’d put them all together in this blog post – and, hopefully, save you the trouble.
The first of these is, should it be ‘My friend and I’ or ‘My friend and me’? Well, it depends on how you’re using it in the sentence. If the two of you are the subject of the sentence, then use the former (My friend and I went to the cinema). But if someone else is the subject of the sentence, then use the latter (She was annoyed with my friend and me). There’s a little test you can do to decide which to use. In each case, take away the other person and if it still makes sense you’ve got it right. (‘I went to the cinema’ and ‘She was annoyed with me’).
Moving on, were you always told at school not to start sentences with ‘And’? Forget that! If you’re writing in a conversational way (informal articles or blog posts) then it’s quite acceptable. It’s also fine if you’re writing dialogue in a short story or a novel – that’s how people talk. But when you’re writing a letter, business email, report or minutes think twice! As a general rule I would avoid it – there are usually other words you can use instead.
Next, when should you use ‘its’ and when should you use ‘it’s’? If you’re not sure about the difference between these two, you’re not alone! Perhaps the easiest way to get it right is to remember that ‘its’ means ‘belonging to it’ (the dog wants its bone) and ‘it’s’ mean ‘it is’ (it’s the best film I’ve ever seen) – you put in the apostrophe to show that the letter ‘i’ is missing. Simple when you know how!
Finally, one that I don’t get asked about much – but it’s a pet hate of mine. Avoid ‘very’ and ‘nice’. Let’s be honest, what do they really mean? If you say ‘It was a nice jacket’, do you mean it was colourful, well-fitting, made off good material? If you say that something is ‘very big’ what exactly does this mean? It’s a very vague way of describing something! I bet that if you read through a piece you have written and force yourself to cross out these two words whenever they appear, and either substitute a different adjective or re-write the sentence, you’ll have a better piece of prose at the end of the exercise.
So there you have them – three things that I get asked about frequently and a fourth that you might just find useful in improving your writing.
Author: Diana Nadin
