TROUBLESOME and FREQUENTLY MISUSED VERBS

Welcome to today's lesson, as we continue in our series of frequently confused and misused verbs, and discuss going to and gonna.

Click Here to begin at the first unit in this 4-part series.

There are exercises at the end of this lesson. You will be able to check your answers.

BASICS

There are many commonly misused verb forms in English.  It's not just learners of English who confuse these forms: Native speakers do, too.  We see these incorrect forms in advertisements, we read them in the lyrics of songs, we read them in novels.  We hear some of them spoken, and we may even say some of these forms ourself in conversational speech.  But when you're writing, the rules change.  Let's take a look at some of these troublesome and frequently misued verbs that we will be dealing with in this unit:

got versus have

fell versus felt

going to versus gonna

say versus tell

GOING TO versus 'GONNA'

GOING TO

USING "GONNA' IS A VERY COMMON AND SERIOUS ERROR IN FORMAL WRITING.  The source of this problem is that speakers in informal conversation commonly say what sounds like "gonna" although there is no formal word "gonna".  Test this out.  Look up "gonna" in a dictionary.  All the dictionaries indicate this is slang.

"Gonna" derives from "going to" of either the present continuous or the past continuous verb tenses.

In all cases of formal writing, as in the following sentences, going to is the correct choice:

 
  • At the dinner table, we discuss what we are going to do in the next few days.

  • Once I said that I was going to join a soccer team and that I was going to need a uniform.
  • My mother told me that she was going to buy me the shoes and socks; my sister said that she was going to buy the shorts; I was going to buy the T-shirt.

Writing Out Dialogue

You will often see gonna in written dialogue when the writer wants to reflect the informal style and dialect of a speaker or character.

Next...

Please continue as we discuss say vs tell.

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