Using the conventions of correct sentence structure,explain why the following sentences are grammatically incorrect. Provide correct versions of...

While I cannot complete your homework exercise for you, I hope that I can help you better understand the rules of grammar amiss here. Maybe with a few pointers in the right direction, you can re-write the sentences yourself!

Let's begin with the first statement, "the downslide country of the economy is a on." I see two problems here, the first being that all of the words in this sentence seem to be out of order. The human brain is typically able to make connections between and understand the words of a sentence, even when they are out of order. Even so, it's better to make sure all of the words are in order according to the rules of grammar and what "makes sense." To figure out the proper order of these words, consider the following questions.

• What is the subject of the sentence? 


• What is happening to the subject?

The second problem I noticed is that the sentence does not begin with a capital letter. Please remember to capitalize the first word of your sentence when you have rearranged it.

The second sentence, "The price of cars have escalated," has an inconsistency in plurals and action. When we are referring to the price of cars overall, it is correct to use has as opposed to have. However, if you were to refer to the prices of any number of individual cars, it would be appropriate to use have. To better understand the consistency in plurals and possession or action, consider the difference between the following two statements.

• He has a dog.


• They have a dog.

For the third statement, there is an inconsistency in the conjugation of the acting phrases. "If I had known, I will not have told him." Here, had known and have told imply that the action occurred in the past. However, will implies future action. How would you rephrase this so that the action will matches up with the past-acting and conditional phrase, "If I had known?" Can you think of any past-tense or conditional alternatives for the word will?

Finally, let's have a look at your fourth sentence: "The quantity of drinks for the party are huge." Just like in the second sentence, we see an inconsistency relating to plurals. In this sentence, though, we are dealing with the plural drinks and the state of being verb are. "Are" is a form of the state of being verb, "be." While it would make sense to say, "The drinks are huge," the drinks themselves are not the subject of the sentence. We want to know about the quantity of drinks, and "quantity" is a singular word. So, what is a singular, not plural, form of the word, "be?" Don't forget that we're talking about the present tense! Let's look at another example to compare the difference between plural and singular forms of "to be."

• "They are going to the store." Here, the word they is plural, and the word are communicates their state of being.


• "She is going to the store." Here, the word she tells us that we're talking about a singular person. The word is communicates her state of being.

I hope this has helped you to better understand these tricky rules of grammar! Good luck!