Let’s keep the quiz momentum going another week. Try your hand at identifying one or more errors in the following sentences.
1. If you’re wondering where my Dad is, Uncle Al saw him hop in the hotel bar.
2. Because the reception is from 5–7 pm, I hope you’ll stay for awhile.
3. I need to follow-up with my sister-in-laws to see if either can give you a lift.
The answers
1. If you’re wondering where my Dad is, Uncle Al saw him hop in the hotel bar.
A) “Dad” shouldn’t get an initial cap here because of the word “my.” That makes “dad” a regular noun like “parent.” Without the “my,” “Dad” is correct because then it’s treated the same as a name. (I lent Dad my jacket.)
B) I think we’d better drag Dad home if he’s still hopping all over the bar. Or maybe he’s not hopping in the bar. Maybe we should have written that he hopped “into the hotel bar.” So we might walk in a mall for exercise, but when we walk into a mall, we are entering. (Jumping into the shower is dangerous enough; please don’t jump in the shower. That repeated action is asking for trouble.)
2. Because the reception is from 5–7 pm, I hope you’ll stay for awhile.
A) The “en dash” between 5 and 7 (with no spaces around it) is correct as a substitute for “to,” but here we should go ahead and use “to” as the parallel companion to “from.” So either of these constructions is fine: The reception is from 5 to 7 pm. The reception is 5–7 pm. (Note that “pm” is just a style choice. You might like “p.m.” or “PM.”)
B) “Awhile” and “a while” are not the same. After a preposition like “in” or “for,” use “a while” (completing the prepositional phrase), but after a verb like “stay” the adverb “awhile” is correct. So we might visit for a while or visit awhile.
3. I need to follow-up with my sister-in-laws to see if either can give you a lift.
A) The hyphen in “follow-up” is often correct (e.g., as an adjective in “follow-up calls”), but here we want two separate words, the verb “follow” and adverb “up.” So it should be “need to follow up” (no hyphen).
B) The way to pluralize “sister-in-law” is adding “s” to “sister,” not “law.” We want “sisters-in-law.” (And if we know any golfers with multiple aces, they have shot “holes-in-one.”)
In addition to presenting workshops on writing in the workplace, Norm Friedman is a writer, editor, and writing coach. His 100+ Instant Writing Tips is a brief “non-textbook” to help individuals overcome common writing errors and write with more finesse and impact. Learn more at http://www.normfriedman.com/index.shtml.