incorrect<\/em> in a sentence such as “I read on the topic.”<\/p>\nSuch a sentence requires the preposition “about”, not the preposition “on”.<\/p>\n
The pronoun “it” in the statement made by the host to the caller referred to a topic.<\/p>\n
So “reading on it” is incorrect, and the host should have used “reading about it” instead.<\/p>\n
I believe that the use of “on” in place of “about” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.<\/p>\n
It is simpler to say or write the one-syllable, two-letter “on” than it is to say or write the two-syllable, five-letter “about”.<\/p>\n
The second problem was that the talk-show host used the verb “need” where another verb was required.<\/p>\n
There are very few actions that humans need<\/em> to take because there are very few things that humans need.<\/p>\nThe verb “should” is the correction for “need to do” in the statement.<\/p>\n
The avoidance of “should” in favor of “need to” in American English has become a common blunder.<\/p>\n
My impression is that this blunder originated in the popular psychology of the 1960s, when the focus was on needs<\/em> and when many started to say the catch-phrase “Don’t should<\/em> on me!”<\/p>\nSolution:<\/strong>
\n“You should do a little bit more reading about it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I heard a gardening expert say this today. Problems: 1. The speaker misused the pronoun “on”. 2. The speaker misused the verb “need”. Explanation: I was listening this morning to a talk-radio program about gardening. A caller asked the host about a topic. The host responded with “You need to do a little bit more…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19,5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-common-english-blunders","category-devolution-toward-simpler","category-prepositions","category-verbs"],"yoast_head":"\n
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