The following sentence has been split into four segments. Identify the segment that contains a grammatical error.
After school, we / went home and / told our respective parents / off the incident.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Explanation
The correct answer is option 4 i.e. off the incident.
Error concept: Incorrect preposition usage.
What is wrong: The phrase “off the incident” is incorrect. The correct preposition to use with “told” in this context is “about.”
Grammatical concept:
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The verb “tell” is followed by “about” when referring to the subject or details of something.
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Using “off” here is ungrammatical and does not convey the intended meaning.
Incorrectness of the concept in context: Saying “told our respective parents off the incident” is wrong; it should be “told our respective parents about the incident.”
How to correct: Replace “off” with “about.”
Correct phrase/ correction: about the incident
Final sentence: After school, we went home and told our respective parents about the incident.
Hence, the chosen option is correct.