Pay Attention to Verb forms

This morning's newspaper suggests again that we need to be more careful about the FORMS of the verbs we use. The first glitch appeared in a teaser on the front page. Sadly, it had to do with the first fatal shark attack off the Florida coast in five years:



Lifeguard said he could see several (sharks) swarming the victim as he approach him in the Florida surf.



Because this statement is in the PAST tense (SAID...COULD SEE), the verb in the dependent clause (APPROACH) should also be in the past tense. The lifeguard was speaking about something that had already happened. The sentence should read as follows:



Lifeguard said he could see several (sharks) swarming the victim as he approached him in the Florida surf.





The second verb glitch appeared in a Washington Post wire article about President Obama's speech yesterday at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. It read as follows:



Much of his agenda is snared near-unanimous Republican opposition in Congress.



The helping verb here should be HAS, not IS because the verb "snared" has a object (OPPOSITION). The helping verb IS would only be used in a sentence without an object, like "Much of his agenda is snarled by Republican opposition." The above sentence should read as follows:



Much of his agenda has snared near-unanimous Republican opposition in Congress.



I would guess that the Washington Post reporter knows the correct grammar but perhaps started to rewrite the sentence and then forgot to follow through on all of the changes.



That brings me to today's BONUS POINT: Whenever you rewrite a sentence or a paragraph to make it read more clearly, take the time to proofread and make sure you didn't actually do just the opposite--make the sentence less clear by only partially changing the wording.