EXPLANATION In English, especially when we are speaking, it is common to leave out certain words, assuming that the listener will fill in the grammatical gaps. We say that the words are understood. See if you can work out what words have been left out of the following sentences:
- They sent us some photos.
- Those are the memories we cherish most.
Written in full, those sentences are:
- They sent to us some photos.
- Those are the memories that we cherish most.
Leaving out words such as 'to' and 'that' is called ellipsis. While ellipsis often works well, as in the two sentences above, sometimes it can lead to our leaving out words that should not be left out. In the sample typical error above, the word adopted has been mistakenly left out after has on the faulty assumption that adopt, placed after will later in the sentence, completes both has and will. Obviously, has adopt doesn’t work; what is required is has adopted, so adopted needs to be inserted. The technical name for leaving out necessary words is faulty ellipsis.
Another example of faulty ellipsis is this news report:
- There was a close call for a Hattonvale family last night when their shed erupted into flames and nearly spread to the house.
It sounds as if their shed nearly spread to the house! What the reporter meant, of course, was this:
- ... when their shed erupted into flames and the fire nearly spread to the house.
A word that is frequently left out (understood) in spoken language is the word that. While leaving out the word that works well when we are speaking, because we can pause appropriately, it is often best to include it in written work. Take this sentence:
- It was then I learnt, hitting people is a very wrong thing to do.
To make the sentence comprehensible, the writer has had to insert a comma where that has been omitted. In the written form, it makes more sense to insert the understood word than to insert a comma in its place.