- Things which are counted come in numbers, measured are amounts. So, “the amount of runs needed to win a match” is incorrect, it’s a number of runs. You can’t ask “what amount of children does the Queen have?” You can have an amount of sugar in a recipe, because that will be measured – you won’t be counting grains of sugar.
- collective nouns are singular, not plural. For example, “a herd of cows are in the field” is wrong. There is one herd (the ‘a’ gives it away) so “a herd of cows is in the field”. Omit the cows and the first example is plainly wrong: “a herd are in the field”. Nor is a list plural: “my list of Christmas presents are very long this year”. Dreadful. A team is also singular.
- On tv shows, especially quiz shows, starting a sentence with ‘so’ is horrific, but starting with your name is even worse. Even Alexander Armstrong on Pointless mentioned this. He might say “player number 4 is Emma. Emma, tell us about yourself”. “So, I’m Emma, I have five children…”. Well, yes, we know you are Emma. You probably have a card stuck to your clothes to help you remember…
- multiplying something by, say 30, makes it bigger, so a sentence like “I earn 30 times less than Donald” is a nonsensical piece of English
I would love to appear on the trashy quiz show The Chase here in the UK. When compere Bradley Walsh asks “If you was to win some money today, what would you do with it?” I’d buy him a book on English grammar.
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