To further reinforce your English grammar footing in 2025, Jose Carillo’s English Forum started last January 28, 2025 a series of very common English grammar misuses even by not just a few of its native speakers. This week we’ll end the series by clarifying 6 more such misuses (number 25 to 30) from about 480 that have been taken up in the Forum’s Use and Misuse board over the years, mostly in response to questions raised by Forum members and readers.
25. “When do we use ‘to me’ and ‘for me’?” (https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=1231.0)
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IMAGE CREDIT: LEARNINGENGLISH.VOANEWS.COM
My reply to the above question by Forum Member Sky, January 2011: We use “to me,” as in “She gave the apple to me,” to indicate movement or action toward yourself; and “for me,” as in “She reserved the apple for me,” to indicate that the object or recipient of an action is yourself. The important thing to remember is that in general, “to” is a preposition for indicating movement toward a place, person, or thing, while “for” is a preposition for indicating the object or recipient of a perception, desire, or activity as well as for indicating purpose or intended goal.
25. “Always keep in mind that in English, it’s the helping verb that takes the tense” (https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=6521.0)
A rant against bad English grammar by Forum visitor Zzyggy Zubiri, August 2015: “Pardon my grammar and punctuation, for I wasn’t a very good student then. My English may not be that good but still, I find from reading Internet forums that unlike people in India and in other nations that use English as a second language, Filipinos have a very irritating, if not confounding, way of using the past tense with words like ‘did’ or ‘would,’ as in ‘did helped’ or ‘would cared.’ Now I’m starting to think that by sheer force of numbers, they may be correct. Is this what our teachers are teaching in school nowadays or should the teachers themselves be taught? Or, more disturbing is—am I wrong?”
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My reply to Zzyggy: Even by sheer force of numbers, not by a long stretch are those Filipinos correct when they use the past tense of the verb with words like “did” or “would,” and I’m absolutely sure that their English teachers aren’t teaching them that terribly wrong usage either. It’s just that being nonnative English speakers, many Filipinos can’t seem to grasp the fact that in English, it’s the helping verb—not the main verb—that takes the tense. I’ve taken up this grammar quirk every now and then in my Manila Times column and in Jose Carillo’s English Forum over the years (https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=6317.0). However, as I had pointed out to an incredulous lawyer puzzled by the cluelessness of some people about that usage, it does need some serious brainwork to grasp the difference between the tensed main verb and the non-tensed bare infinitive in English sentences.
26. “Words I love to hate—‘signage’ and ‘signages’” (https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=773.0)
Observation by British Forum Member Gary Covington, July 2010: “I might as well wade in here—English speakers never use the word ‘signage’ or ‘signages.’ Plain old sign or signs do well enough.”
(http://josecarilloforum.com/imgs/signage-sign.jpg)
IMAGE CREDIT: AMZANNEON.COM
My reply to Gary: That may be so, Gary, but American English speakers—Filipinos included—have been using “signage” since 1976 to specifically mean signs of identification, warning or direction, as opposed to the plain word “sign” that denotes “a mark having a conventional meaning and used in place of words or to represent a complex notion.” I find the distinction very useful myself considering that “sign” has at least seven distinct meanings as opposed to “signage,” which has only one, as we can see in this definition by my Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary:
Main Entry: signage
Function: noun
Date: 1976
: signs (as of identification, warning, or direction) or a system of such signs
Click this link for AmzanNeon.com’s very informative website distinguishing between “signs” and “signages.” https://www.amzanneon.com/articles/difference-between-signage-and-sign/
27. “English - how do I love thee?” (https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=44.0)
Observation by Australian Forum member maxsims, May 2009: “On the cover of English Plain and Simple, Julia Kirby’s commendation ends with the sentence, “If you love the English language as I do, Carillo’s is just the type of book you’ll love having at hand.’ Is not Julia telling us that she loves the English language in a particular but unspecified manner? If she is telling us that she merely loves the language, is not ‘as I do’ parenthetic (a non-restrictive clause) and therefore should have commas fore and aft?"
(http://josecarilloforum.com/imgs/eps-julia-cover-2.jpg)
COVER PAGE ENDORSEMENT BY JULIA KIRBY OF THE FIRST EDITION (2003)
OF MY BOOK ENGLISH PLAIN AND SIMPLE
My reply to maxsims: “I think she meant the conditional phrase ‘if you love the English language as I do’ to be taken as a whole, in which case the phrase ‘as I do’ within it is a restrictive, nonparenthetic phrase. Of course, if she intended ‘as I do’ to be nonrestrictive, it should have commas fore and aft as you suggest, but the meaning would be different. The comparative aspect would disappear from the phrase and it would sound as if Julia was saying that if you love the English language, you’d love having at hand the type of book that Carillo has written. It’s clear, though, that she thinks it's enough for people to just love English to the degree that she does to appreciate Carillo’s book. And I must admit that I’m rather comfortable with that idea as it is.
“A favorable review of one’s book is a gift, so I accepted Julia’s critique in the spirit of that good, old adage that 'One shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’ And I must add that I still think that the gift horse was absolutely healthy and remains so today—for which I remain truly grateful to the giver.”
28. “What do you think of initiatives to do away with the serial comma a.k.a as the Oxford comma?” (https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=1706.0)
My reply to that question by Forum Member BenVallejo in August 2021: “I am a consistent user of the serial comma in both my private correspondence and published work, so I think the growing practice of doing away with it is ill-advised. I gave my reasons for sticking with it in ‘Why I consistently use the serial comma,’ an essay that I wrote for my English-usage column in The Manila Times in July of 2009. I subsequently posted that essay here in the Forum in December of 2010. You may want to check it out by clicking this link to “Using the serial comma isn’t just a matter of stylistic preference.” https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=1111.0
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“Long live the serial comma!”
29. “Should you let your prepositions dangle?” (https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=6894.0)
Whether prepositions should be allowed to end a clause instead of preceding it, or allowed to dangle at the end of the sentence, is still a hotly debated aspect of English grammar. There are those who staunchly cling to the old dictum that a preposition should always immediately follow the clause it modifies, wherever that clause occurs in the sentence, as the “of” in this example: “The approach of which she is thinking is appealing to our stockholders.” This convoluted expression is supposedly grammatically superior to the following more natural, spontaneously sounding sentence: “The approach she is thinking of is appealing to our stockholders.”
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About this problem, I gave this recommendation in my May 13, 2017 column in The Manila Times: “If you are formally putting the statement in writing, as in a school essay, thesis, or dissertation, place the dangling preposition inside the sentence where they won’t give you any trouble, or else make it disappear if possible. But if you are giving a lecture, speech, or sermon, let the prepositions dangle for whatever they are worth. You will sound much more natural, engaging, and convincing that way!”
30. “Unsettling violations of the subject-verb agreement rule” (https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=6898.0)
In May 2017, as I was finishing my Manila Times column that reviewed the subject-verb agreement rule, I thought I could already comfortably leave the subject for good. I was wrong. I soon found out that the misuse of the rule is much more serious and pervasive than I thought. And I saw much more clearly that the problem is due not only to a faulty understanding of that rule but also to certain quirks of the English language itself. This prompted me to immediately write this more exhaustive column (“Unsettling violations of the subject-verb agreement rule”) to help curb all those disastrous applications of the subject-verb agreement rule.[/size]
(http://josecarilloforum.com/imgs/subject-verb_agreement-rulebreaker-1.jpg) (http://josecarilloforum.com/imgs/subject-verb_agreement-chart-1A.jpg)
This is the last of the Forum’s five-part series on frequent English grammar misuses