If it's THESE, it must be KINDS

Agreement is the issue again today. Lawman1856 posted a comment on al.com last week. He (or she?) was complaining about a news report that Jefferson County deputies had been called to a home to referee a domestic dispute over the cost of a facelift. Lawman created this sentence:



It's these kind of calls that take officers and deputies off the streets and waste taxpayers' time.



He may have a point, but even web posters should watch their grammar if they want to be considered credible. THESE is plural; therefore, the word that follows should be KINDS. Or, he might have referred to THIS KIND, but then he would have had to change CALLS to CALL. The sentence should read in one of the two following ways:



It's these kinds of calls that take officers and deputies off the streets and waste taxpayers' time.



It's this kind of call that takes officers and deputies off the streets and wastes taxpayers' time.



Notice how many different elements of the sentence (five in all) must be consistent with each other (all singular or all plural) for the sentence to be correct.



NOTE: I do give lawman1856 credit for putting the apostrophe AFTER the "s" with taxpayers' because he was referring to more than one taxpayer. He definitely got that part right!