Celebrity English | Grammar Examples

Beyoncé Knowles says she feels badly about her behavior during a duet performance with Prince at the 2004 Grammy Awards. She explains that the reason she did not share the microphone with her singing partner is because her diva alter ego, who she refers to as "Sasha," took over her body and stole the show.

These sentences contain a total of three errors:

1. an error in modifier confusion (an adverb has been used in place of an adjective)
2. an error in diction (the construction "the reason… is because" is redundant)
3. an error in pronoun case (a subjective pronoun has been used in place of an objective pronoun)

In the clause "Beyoncé Knowles says she feels badly," the verb "feels" is a linking verb and the modifier "badly" is an adverb. A linking verb connects a subject with either a predicate nominative (a noun or a pronoun) or a predicate adjective. The correct form of modifier to use in this context is the adjective "bad." The use of "badly" to modify the verb implies that "feels" is an action verb, in which case the interpretation of the clause would be that Beyoncé is having trouble touching things.

The clause that includes "the reason she did not share the microphone with her singing partner is because" contains an error in diction. The construction "the reason… is because" is redundant since the word "because" means "for the reason that." To correct the sentence, either replace “because” with “that” or remove both “the reason” and “is.”

The noun phrase "her diva alter ego, who she refers to as 'Sasha'" contains an error in pronoun case. The pronoun "who" is in the subjective case, but serves as the indirect object of the verb "refers." To determine which pronoun to use, rearrange the words and replace the subjective "who" with the subjective "she."

She refers to she as "Sasha."

This does not make sense. Replace the second instance of the subjective "she" with the objective "her."

She refers to her as "Sasha."

This makes sense. Now replace the objective "her" with the objective "whom" and return the words to their original syntax.

whom she refers to as "Sasha"

This is correct.

These are the sentences with all of the errors corrected:

Beyoncé Knowles says she feels bad about her behavior during a duet performance with Prince at the 2004 Grammy Awards. She explains that the reason she did not share the microphone with her singing partner is because her diva alter ego, whom she refers to as "Sasha," took over her body and stole the show.

or

Beyoncé Knowles says she feels bad about her behavior during a duet performance with Prince at the 2004 Grammy Awards. She explains that the reason she did not share the microphone with her singing partner is because that her diva alter ego, whom she refers to as "Sasha," took over her body and stole the show.