Identify five (5) grammatical errors in speech and five (5) errors in print.  And then write
a discussion of the errors, indicating why each one is an error, what grammatical rule was
broken, and how the error can be avoided or changed to become standard English usage.
For the errors in print, include the actual printed copy either in the body of the paper or
in an appendix to the paper (original or photocopy).

For example:

Recently I was walking across campus when I heard someone say:

                                *I been getting a lot of crank phone calls lately.

The person who spoke this substandard English sentence was apparently a WKU undergraduate
student.    She used the past participle of be (been) without an auxiliary.  The standard form
should be:

                                  I have been getting a lot of crank phone calls lately.

                                                                      or
                                 I've been getting a lot of crank phone calls lately.

In this standard form, have and been both serve as auxiliaries of the verb to get; together they
form the present perfect continuous tense: have been getting.
 
 

On the bulletin board at my sorority house I found this sentence last week:

               *Congratulations to Clarissa!  She did real good on her mid-term math exam.

The phrase real good has two errors in it.  Good should show HOW Clarissa did, and words
that indicate HOW are adverbs.  Good, however, is an adjective.  The writer, therefore,
should have used the adverb well.    If good is changed to well, then the word in front of it
should be another adverb--really.  Adverbs can modify other adverbs.  Thus the standard
form of the sentence would be:

                 Congratulations to Clarissa!  She did really well on her mid-term math exam.

                                                                          or

                  Congratulations, Clarissa, for doing so well on your mid-term math exam!