Grammatical errors abound in professional writing, primarily on the web. If web publications really do want to be accepted at the same level of quality as print publications, web authors need to clean up their writing styles. Or, we could follow the example of web style, as web access itself becomes more accessible and accepted, and allow the language to degrade into a quasi-ruleless, casual tone.

Here are some examples of grammatical errors on the web. The notations indicate the location of the passage on the page: P=paragraph, S=sentence. (Links open new windows.)

Dangling modifier: P1 S2 now reads: Unable to escape from the gorge in which the river runs, the locals become more and more of a threat.

As written, the locals are unable to escape from the gorge, yet the writer meant to say the protagonists were unable to escape as the locals became more threatening.

Typographical error, or unfinished edit: P1 S1 now reads: . . . the dinner party scene where people sit on lavatories round a dinner table on, occasionally retiring to a little room to eat.

Perhaps this meant to read: . . . 'round a dinner table, and on occasion retiring  . . . 

Sentence fragment AND missing serial comma, a two-fer!: P2 S5 & 6 now read: In the heat of passion, Frank kills Captain Walker, all of which is seen by Tommy. After which, he is blind, deaf and dumb.

The second sentence isn't a sentence at all. It's a fragment, specifically, a lone dependent clause. We could try this: In the heat of passion, Frank kills Captain Walker. Tommy witnesses all of this, and subsequently becomes blind, deaf, and dumb.

"Blind, deaf and dumb," which would have been correctly punctuated years ago, is now considered less than ideal, if not incorrect. We use a serial comma now, before the "and," to differentiate between the pentultimate item on the list and the last. Without the serial comma, the last two items could be confused for a single item.