Is there an error in this sentence?
When Darun heard the news that his father had been hospitalised he cancelled his trip and returned back to his village.
I think the error is 'back' but I need your confirmation.
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Please note the corrected spelling of grammar (not grammer) in the question title.– Daniel HarbourCommented Oct 22, 2013 at 21:32
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Might be a regionalism. Round these parts we don't find things we've lost, we "find them back" e.g. "I found back my keys. They were in the refrigerator."– Wayfaring StrangerCommented May 1, 2015 at 11:19
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@WayfaringStranger - I can't recall ever hearing "I found back my ...".– Hot LicksCommented May 2, 2015 at 13:01
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returned to his village once again, sounds better.– LambieCommented May 11, 2018 at 16:53
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4 Answers
There is nothing ungrammatical about "returned back to his village" even though "back" is slightly redundant. You could say:
When Darun heard the news that his father had been hospitalised he cancelled his trip and returned to his village.
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2However there is a comma missing after the leading dependent clause, "When Darun heard...".– hardmathCommented Oct 22, 2013 at 23:06
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@hardmath: Very true. I focused on the question asked but you are right that the sentence has other problems.– MrHenCommented Oct 22, 2013 at 23:52
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Right, although "grammar" only appears in the title. Body of Question asks, "Is there an error in this sentence?" So if this was a test problem, possibly the OP jumped to an incorrect guess about the nature of any "error".– hardmathCommented Oct 23, 2013 at 18:00
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But the body question was about any error, and idiomaticity is as important as grammaticality. Commented May 11, 2018 at 19:02
The word back is implied by the word return, so basically it is not necessary to use back. Just return is enough.
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The mistake is the redundency of using 'returned back'. It is not acceptable, unless a character speaks like that (dialogue, or 1st person narrative). Also, there is a comma missing that indicates time.
When Darun heard the news that his father had been hospitalised, he cancelled his trip and returned to his village.
'Returned' is not a proper word as of the correct English usage, but is a misconception usually considered a word due to to repetition. As of 2012, the Oxford dictionary considered it as a word, but its usage is still considered wrong in context of the corseated British English.
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1With the exception of the dictionary reference (which is a matter of fact), this answer is completely wrong.– Andrew Leach ♦Commented May 1, 2015 at 11:08
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So how come I can't find the definition of "corseated" anywhere? Commented May 2, 2015 at 12:58