10 English Grammar Mistakes that are Accepted in Casual Speech

"If I just lay, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?"

I apologize for my singing voice.

Is it "lay"?

Is it "lie"?

Are the lyrics to that song correct?

Find out at the end of this video.

Hey, I'm Alex.

Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on 10 Common Grammar Mistakes That Are Accepted

in Casual Speech.

So before you accuse me of saying, "Alex is teaching bad grammar" and all that kind of

stuff, I want to specify.

Good grammar is almost always, if not always, desirable.

Yes, you should try to have correct grammar when you speak, especially when you write,

and definitely avoid these mistakes if you are writing a professional email, or an academic

paper, or a message to your boss.

Avoid them in professional situations and academics, but know that almost everyone makes

one or more of these errors on a regular basis.

Now, it's because they never learned the proper rule in the first place, or it's just something

that people have, you know, moved into the popular sphere, into pop culture, and it's

just accepted because you hear many people speaking like this, and then you start speaking

this way, too, and it just becomes part of the popular usage.

So, if you are in an informal situation, these mistakes are often accepted, and almost no

one will say, "Hey, that's actually wrong", because there's a good chance they make the

same mistakes.

So, what mistakes am I talking about?

Well, I have my list here.

I'm not going to show it to you, but I will reference it.

Let's start with "there is" versus "there are".

You know the rule.

You have to use "there is" with singular, and "there are" with plurals.

So, you're supposed to say, "There is a car", and "There are two cars", but I'm sure you're

aware and maybe you make this mistake.

You say, "Hey, there's a lot of people in here", or "Hey, there's a lot of issues we

need to fix at this company", and you know you're supposed to say "there are" for plurals,

but for some reason, we just say "there's", "there's", "there's", "there's" for everything.

Not in all cases.

It's not even a consistent mistake.

Some people sometimes use "are" for plurals, sometimes use "is" for plurals.

Know that it's not the end of the world if you say, "There's a lot of people", because

there's a good chance your friend also says, "There's a lot of people".

Next, this is the past tense mistake.

The past tense version of the "there is", "there are" problem, and that's "there was"

and "there were".

So, the same thing here.

You know it's supposed to be singular with "there was", and you know it's supposed to

be plural with "there were".

For example, you're supposed to say, "There were a lot of them", but you may have said,

"There was a lot of them", right?

Or "There was a lot of dogs at the dog park today".

It should be, "There were a lot of dogs at the dog park", but if you say "there was",

again, it's not the end of the world in a casual situation.

Next up, "less" versus "fewer".

So, we have less problems than we did a week ago.

The express aisle is for ten items or less.

These are grammatically incorrect.

You probably know that you should use "fewer" when you're talking about things that you

count.

This mistake has been so internalized that grocery stores everywhere have been making

it and probably don't even know that they're making it.

So, if you ever see a sign that says ten items or less, know that it should say ten items

or fewer.

Next up, "you and me" versus "you and I".

So, "you and I" is what you should use when you are putting yourself and someone else

in the subject position of a sentence.

So, let me reference my paper here.

Right, you're supposed to say, "My friend and I went to Cuba last month", but there's

a good chance at some point in your life you have said, "My friend and me went to Cuba

last month", or "Me and my friend went to Cuba last month".

This is an accepted mistake because everyone speaks like this, and it's accepted, and it's

in popular usage.

It's not the end of the world if you speak like this in a casual situation, alright?

Next up, "between you and I" versus "between you and me".

So, "between you and me", the correct answer is "between you and me".

Now, why is that?

It's because "between" is a preposition; a preposition is a word like "at", "on", "in",

"with", words like these, small words that show a relationship between different words.

The word that comes after a preposition, if you use a pronoun, it has to be the object

pronoun, okay?

So, "me" is the object, "I" is the subject.

Now, for some reason, there's a hypercorrection happening where we think that "between you

and I" sounds very, very formal, when in fact, it's actually totally grammatically incorrect.

So, if you think you're being fancy when you say "between you and I", you're actually just

dead wrong grammatically.

And that's another one where, "Okay, should I say 'between you and I' then?"

You shouldn't.

Try to avoid it.

The correct answer is, or the correct phrase is, "between you and me".

"Between" is a preposition; it needs an object pronoun.

"Who", "whom" versus "that", so, "He's the guy that I told you about."

We should use "who" and "whom" to talk about people, but we often use "that" as a short

form to talk about everything, whether it's objects, places, people, you know, "She's

the one that he married", "She's the woman that he married", for example.

Try to use "who" in that case, right?

And if you use "that", most people won't notice.

That really should be reserved, though, for objects and place...

Not places, sorry, for objects.

Next up, we have "should've" versus "should've".

Now, this is more of a mistake of writing, but if you are in a situation where, you know,

it's "should've", "of", it sounds like "should've", the contracted form of "should have", so really,

the form is "should have".

So, if you say "should've" and you're thinking "should", "of", it's wrong, like, what you're

thinking in your mind is wrong, and if you write it, it's dead wrong, never write it,

it's not accepted in writing at all, please don't.

But if you think it when you're speaking, it's not wrong at all, it's actually correct,

because it sounds exactly like the contracted form of "should've".

All right, "farther" versus "further".

So, "farther" is only for physical distances.

"Further" can be for physical distances or figurative distances.

So, if I say, "Wow, you know, you can go... he went further in life", or "further in his

career", or "further in her job", or something like this, this is fine, you're referring

to a figurative distance with "further", but a lot of people just don't know the difference

between "farther" and "further", so they'll say, for example, "Where is it, here?"

Or, you know, "You will go farther in life if you", I don't know, "get on the keto diet"?

I don't believe in stuff like that, but just an example.

All right, so, yeah, if you use "farther" for figurative distance, it's not the end

of the world.

There's a good chance the person you're speaking to might not know that you're supposed to

use "further" for figurative, and "farther" is only for physical distances.

Okay, next up.

In regard to vs. in regards to.

So, which one is correct?

Well, it's actually "in regard to".

So, "regard" is an uncountable noun.

This means it does not have a plural form, so if you write an email, make sure you write

"in regard to".

So, in regard to your last email, the answer is "yes", or in regard to your email, "Yes,

we would be happy to help you".

But if you write "in regards to", or if you say "in regards to", chances are only grammar

teachers and those who study grammar will notice.

So, try to use "in regard to" in a professional setting.

Use "in regard to", but that is one where there's a good chance your boss doesn't even

know if it's "in regards to" or "in regard to", so you have a little more flexibility

in that one.

"Regards", what you put at the end of an email, or what you say, you know, to someone, "Best

regards", I guess it's more for writing, means, like, "best wishes", so you can send your

regards to someone, your best wishes.

But if you use "in regard to" vs. "in regards to", stick to "in regard to", it's the correct

form.

Alright, we have one more, "lie" vs. "lay".

So, this is an issue of a transitive verb vs. an intransitive verb.

It's not "untransitive", it's "intransitive".

So, "lie" is an intransitive verb.

What this means is that it doesn't take an object.

So, you can say, "I'm just going to lie here for a little bit."

So, this means I'm going to rest, you know?

I'm going to put my body down on the bed, or something like that.

"Lay" is transitive, which means it needs an object.

So, if someone comes to your home and they are carrying a bunch of stuff, you can...

And they ask you, it's like, "Hey, can I just, like, lay my stuff down here?"

That's correct.

You have to...

You have to lay something.

You have to lay something on the bed, or lay something on the floor.

But if you use "lie", it's just "lie" by itself the majority of the time.

So, "I'm just going to lie here for a little bit."

And you might hear, "I'm just going to lay here for a little bit."

And that is grammatically incorrect, but most people don't know the difference between "lie"

and "lay", so it's not the end of the world, as I said.

What makes it even more confusing is that "lie" has a past form, of course, and the

past form of "lie" is actually "lay", which is the present of "lay", and the past form

of "lay" is "laid laid".

Now, you're probably confused, just as I am when I'm explaining this, because it's...

It makes things really difficult.

So, let's go back to the song, this Snow Patrol song.

If I just lay...

If I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Those are the lyrics, right?

Now, based on what I've said, you might say it's wrong, because he's saying, "If I just

lay here", and you have to lay something.

It is actually correct, though.

Why?

It's a second conditional sentence in that song, and if...

For example, you don't say, "If I have a million dollars, I would buy a house."

You would say, "If I had a million dollars."

So, they're saying, "If I just lay here", past tense of "lie", "would you lie with me?"

You say, "I would buy a house.

Would you lie?", which is the present of "lie" in this case.

It's actually 100% correct.

It's a second conditional sentence, and it is correct.

And if you're saying, "Oh, it's incorrect, because you can't say, 'If I lay here'", yes,

you can, because "lay" is the past of "lie", so it works in this case.

All right.

So, I hope you had fun with this video.

I hope you've learned some things.

And if you didn't, and if you knew all these mistakes, and if you're really upset right

now because, "Oh, why are you saying these mistakes are acceptable?"

I'm not saying they're acceptable.

I am saying they are accepted in casual situations, and if you don't make them, bravo.

You should feel good, and you should try to avoid these at all costs in professional and

academic situations.

Good grammar is always desirable; however, it is not always known by everybody.

Okay?

We all make mistakes, and because we all make them, we all kind of just accept them as well.

So, I'm going to stop there.

So, if you want to test your understanding of this material and practice the correct

forms of everything we discussed here, make sure to do the quiz on www.engvid.com.

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And I have plenty of other useful materials, useful videos for you to check out.

So, until next time, I have been talking for too long.

I'm going to go lie down, lay down, I don't know.

You tell me.