Common Mistakes with guilty

Common Mistakes with guilty

I am going to tell you some points about the adjective “guilty” which is related to its prepositions. Let’s check the meaning of guilty before going to its prepositions. Here is the definition of Guilty in some dictionaries:

Oxford:

Cambridge:

1- feeling guilt 

2- responsible for breaking a law:

example:

The jury has to decide whether a person is guilty or innocent of a crime.
A person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Based on the above definitions for the word “guilty” it seems to mean doing something wrong which is equal to breaking a law. This word is an adjective and sometime it needs a preposition. There are some preposition which are used with this adjective and the most common and useful one are “of” and “about” while some others are being used with this adjective, but most of them are not correct or applicable.

Most of English learners usually make a mistake on using this adjective with the proper preposition, and they use “for” instead of “of” . So you need to be very careful not to make this mistake while the adjective “guilty” never takes “for” as a preposition.

Common Mistakes #51

× He was found guilty for the crime.

✓ He was found guilty of the crime.

Common Mistakes with guilty can be found so much between English learners especially in using that to use “for” with “guilty” while in English there is no need to use for with “guilty”. Actually in English we use of with “guilty” to express some is commuting a crime. Take a look at the following example to understand it better:

× I have never been guilty for cheating in my exams in the school.

✓ I have never been guilty of cheating in my exams in the school.

or

× They were been guilty for tax fraud last year.

✓ They were been guilty of tax fraud last year.

or

× Trump is known as guilty for sexual harassment.

✓ Trump is known as guilty of sexual harassment.

Actually in some cases and some situations it is possible to use the preposition “about” and “at” with the adjective “guilty” too, but never use “guilty” with “for”.

She felt guilty about what had happened to her friend.

The pilot seems to be the guilty of airplane crash.

The company’s CEO should admits to be guilty of mismanaging the company.

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