Two Agreement Goofs in One Article!

A recent article in The Birmingham News deals with a sadly
familiar issue--budget cuts in city government. Also sadly familiar is the
issue of subject/verb agreement which is handled incorrectly in TWO
sentences in this one article. The first sentence reads as follows:

Birmingham's financial challenges
and bare bones 2011 budget has made
it to the national spotlight.

This sentence has TWO subjected (CHALLENGES, BONES) connected by the word AND. Therefore, the verb should be plural. The sentence should read this way:

Birmingham's financial challenges and bare bones 2011 budget have made it to the national spotlight.

In the next paragraph, the reporter writes this sentence:

Mayor William Bell will appear on CNN's "Your Money" this weekend to discuss how a tough economy and low revenue is affecting cities nationwide.

Whoops again! The final clause of this sentence also has TWO subjects (ECONOMY, REVENUE), and they are also connected by AND. Therefore, the verb should be plural, and the sentence should read as follows:

Mayor William Bell will appear on CNN's "Your Money" this weekend to discuss how a tough economy and low revenue are affecting cities nationwide.

BONUS POINT: We should give this reporter credit for getting the usage correct by using the VERB "affecting" in this sentence.

Subject/verb Agreement Again!

This morning's local newspaper reports that the alcohol producers in this country want the federal government to standardize dietary information on the labels of alcoholic products. http://www.discus.org That may be an excellent idea, but the reporter who wrote the story forgot about grammar agreement when creating this sentence:

The Distilled Spirits Council says that there's no consistent labeling rules for beer, wine and spirits to show consumers the serving size, calories and alcohol content per serving.

PERSISTENT REMINDER FROM GRAMMAR GLITCH: When a sentence begins with the word THERE, the choice of singular or plural verb depends on the SUBJECT, which appears AFTER the verb in this construction. Notice that I've highlighted the word "rules" in red in the above sentence. Because "rules" is plural, the reporter should have chosen THERE ARE instead of THERE IS. This sentence should read as follows:

The Distilled Spirits Council says that there are no consistent labeling rules for beer, wine and spirits to show consumers the serving size, calories and alcohol content per serving.

If the reporter wanted to use THERE IS, the sentence could have been written this way:

The Distilled Spirits Council says there is no consistent labeling (SINGULAR) for beer, wine and spirits to show consumers the serving size, calories and alcohol content per serving.

Miss Manners Knows Agreement as Well as Manners

Judith Martin's Miss Manners column, which appears in newspapers across the country, offers excellent advice on etiquette with a gentle twist of sarcasm from time to time. Her grammar is as impeccable as her manners. You can find her online at http://www.missmanners.com/.



In an answer to a "Gentle Reader" in today's column, Miss Manners created an interesting sentence while explaining how a high school girl can politely refuse an invitation to a school dance. Here is the sentence:



But everyone, even vulnerable young gentlemen in high school, has to learn to deal with whatever hurt is felt if an invitation is declined or a romantic impulse unrequited.



Miss Manners knows that the word EVERYONE is singular, and so, in spite of the inserted phrase (even vulnerable young gentlemen (PLURAL) in high school), she chose the singular verb HAS, which is absolutely correct.



I might gently suggest to Miss Manners that vulnerable readers, who have a tendency to confuse singular and plural agreement situations, would understand this sentence more quickly if she changed the inserted phrase to singular, too. I am NOT suggesting that the sentence is incorrect--just that it might be made clearer for readers with less grammar experience. Here is how I would word it for those readers:



But everyone, even a vulnerable young gentleman in high school, has to learn to deal with whatever hurt is felt if an invitation is declined or a romantic impulse unrequited.



Have a great week, everyone!

Agreement Issues

As I continue to proofread that ad brochure I received, I see several agreement issue sentences in Brad Watson's column. Here is one example:



Primary eligibility for borrowing are that you must be 62 years of age or older, own the property, and occupy the property as principal residence.



In this instance, the error might be simply a typo/word omission error, but ELIGIBILITY is singular and takes the singular verb IS. The simplest way to fix this one is to add the word REQUIREMENTS, as follows:



Primary eligibility requirements for borrowing are that you must be at least 62 years of age, own the property, and occupy the property as principal residence.



BONUS POINT: I also simplified the wording to "at least 62 years of age..."



Here is another example from the same article:



State and federal funding has received enormous hits....



This appears to be correct because FUNDING is singular, but state funding is one thing and federal funding is another (as any Southerner would be quick to point out). The sentence should read this way:



Both state funding and federal funding have received enormous hits....



Here is one more agreement problem from the same article, this one involving two related sentences:



Many think that reverse mortgages are a debt builder, but that's not the case when used effectively. It can actually settle debts and can keep seniors in their own home where they want and deserve to be.



The word MORTGAGES is plural, so THEY are debt builders (plural). The second sentence refers to MORTGAGES, so the pronoun should be THEY, not IT. The sentence should read this way:



Many think that reverse mortgages build debt, but that's not the case when they are used effectively. They can actually settle debts and keep seniors in their own homes where they want and deserve to be.



Notice the other changes I made to make this sentence flow more smoothly.

If you are letting THEM know, why do I have to quit driving?

I apologize for my silence this past week. Unfortunately, it has not been because the entire world has suddenly started using good grammar. I have just been busy with other things. HINT: See my http://www.genevapow.blogspot.com/ blog next week for an update on my marble quarry research in Sylacauga.



To make it up to my regular readers, I'll post two good pieces of grammar advice this afternoon instead of one. The first has to do with the appropriate choice of pronouns. Here is a sentence that appeared in an article in this morning's The Birmingham News:



"We want to let them know that you don't have to quit driving."



This was a quote from someone at AARP http://www.aarp.org/, and I recognize that it was said out loud, which is somewhat of an excuse. However, it is confusing. In this sentence, THEM refers to older drivers who need to update their skills to keep driving. The speaker should be letting THEM know that, with the AARP defensive driving class, THEY (not YOU or I) can keep driving. The sentence should read this way:



We want to let them know that they don't have to quit driving.



When you proofread, always make sure the pronoun you use refers clearly to the person or thing it represents and that the antecedent and the pronoun agree in number.



A bullet point in another article in this morning's newspaper brings up my old pet peeve of subject/verb agreement. By the way, this is my thirty-sixth blog post relating to subject/verb agreement.

This bullet point appears in an exciting article about the upcoming Indy Grand Prix of Alabama race to be held at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham http://www.barbermotorsports.com/ in just a few weeks. This is the bullet point:

• All 250 of the $450 "Speed Pass" packages, which includes admission all three days along with special access to the paddock area and access to the pit area during Friday and Saturday races.

Unless somebody is not playing fair, ALL 250 of the PACKAGES (plural) INCLUDE (plural) the items listed. The bullet point should read this way:\

• all 250 of the $450 "Speed Pass" packages, which include admission to the paddock aea and access to the pit area during Friday and Saturday races

BONUS POINTS: 1) Whoever proofread this sentence (copy editor perhaps?) did not notice that the word TO had been left out.



2) Bullet points that are not complete sentences (and this one is not--no verb in the main clause) do NOT require end punctuation, so I removed the period after RACES. They also do not require a capital letter at the beginning, so I uncapitalized ALL.



I hope you find this information useful.

Cal Thomas Column Presents Sticky Agreement Issue

Cal Thomas's column http://www.calthomas.com appears regularly in my local newspaper, and most of the time, I don't even think about his grammar or usage as I read what he writes. Yesterday, however, one sentence stood out with a jolt because it sounded awkward. My pet peeve, agreement, was the issue, but the solution was not so simple. Here is the sentence:



"So much of what passes for facts today are like what another generation called 'old wives' tales.'"



Generally, the word WHAT can be considered singular (therefore, the verb PASSES) even if what follows the verb (FACTS) is plural. However, this sentence goes further and adds ARE, which sounds awkward to me. I visited a couple other websites to check their opinions and found a good discussion of this subject on Englishforums.com http://www.englishforums.com/. If you want to access the discussion, which is an older post, Google the words "plural what," and this discussion will pop up.



I decided to tweak the sentence myself and improve it as follows:



So much of what passes for fact today is like what another generation called "old wives' tales."



I'd be interested in your comments. To me, my version sounds much clearer. (Of course, I hold a certain bias for my own opinion.) What do you think?

AED = Deadly Mix; Singular + Plural = Bad Mix, Too!

280 Living http://www.280living.com/ carried a recent article about the dangers of mixing alcohol with energy drinks. This is important and useful information, but it would be more effective if the article had been well written. The source was ParentTalk, a publication of The Alabama Department of Children's Affairs and The Alabama Parent Network http://www.children.alabama.gov./.



The article contains several examples of poor subject/verb agreement or pronoun/antecedent agreement that I will share with you and then correct:

Where once energy drinks were a fad among our youth, it has now become a staple in their lives.


Whoops! If the writer refers to ENERGY DRINKS (plural), that writer must then use a plural pronoun. The verb must also change to the plural, as follows:

Where once energy drinks were a fad among our youth, they have now become a staple in their lives.



Here is another poor example from the same article:


The newest trend of energy drinks are referred to as "speedball in a can."


Whoops again! TREND (singular) is the subject of this sentence (not DRINKS, which is the object of the preposition OF). Therefore, the verb should be IS. The sentence should read as follows:

The newest trend in energy drinks is referred to as "speedball in a can."


BONUS POINT #1: Usage is also a problem in this sentence. Correct usage refers to trends IN something, not OF something.


BONUS POINT #2: Remember that the period ALWAYS goes inside the quotation marks.



The author of this article also struggled with gender pronouns, as the following sentence shows:


Without scanners that alert a store clerk to a product containing alcohol, it is left up to her/him to know the difference between each product her store sells.


Whew! This sentence has major, major problems! First, by changing A STORE CLERK to STORE CLERKS, the writer could have avoided the HIS/HER problem completely. Second, it is not possible to have a difference BETWEEN each product (singular). Third, if the writer chooses to use HIM/HER, that writer cannot then refer to the clerk as simply HER. A quick fix for this sentence looks like this:


Without scanners that alert store clerks to products containing alcohol, it is left up to the individual clerks to know the differences between the products they sell.


I hope you agree that this version is MUCH easier to read.


BONUS POINT #3: It is a good idea to avoid HIM/HER in most business writing. Use the plural or choose either HIM or HER for clearer writing.

Title of Talk Gets Apostrophe Placement Wrong

A nationally recognized expert on dementia was to give a talk in Birmingham last Saturday. The newspaper quoted the title of her talk as follows:


Dementia Care Challenges: How to Maintain a Sound Mind When Your Loved Ones' Mind is Changing

Whoops! The speech title clearly refers to ONE loved one. It does not talk about more than one loved one. If it did, the verb would be "are" instead of "is," and the title would refer to when your loved ones' minds ARE changing. Therefore, the apostrophe should appear BEFORE the "s." It should read as follows:



Dementia Care Challenges: How to Maintain a Sound Mind When Your Loved One's Mind is Changing



REMEMBER: The apostrophe goes BEFORE the "s" if you are talking about a singular person or thing.

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!

More Subject/Verb Agreement Confusion

A recent request in the local "Good Neighbors" column here in Birmingham contained a sentence that read as follows:



M. R. wanted to buy one of the pink and white commemorative plates that was given to adults who were in attendance when South Avondale Baptist Church held its last service.



At first glance, this sentence might appear to be correct. The verb "was" is singular, and the word "one" is singular, so they agree. BUT, read it again. M. R. only wants to buy ONE plate; however, many more than ONE were given out on the day of the last church service.



In this case, the clause "that WERE given to adults who...." describes PLATES (more than one) not the ONE plate M. R. wanted to buy.



The sentence should read as follows:



M. R. wanted to buy one of the pink and white plates that were given to adults when South Avondale Baptist Church held its last service.

Verb Agreement Mixup in The Denver Post

Yesterday's The Denver Post carried a sentence about the Mideast conflict that offers a good example of poor subject/verb agreement. If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know that is one of my pet peeves.

Here is the sentence:

He did not disclose what kind of action Netanyahu recommend be taken.”

Subject/verb agreement is always difficult when the sentence has more than one clause--more than one subject and more than one verb. In this sentence, there is the added difficulty of the "be taken" tacked onto the end.

The second clause is basically saying "Netanyahu recommends" action, but the reporter doesn't know what kind. Netanyahu is one person (singular), so the verb should be "recommends," which is singular.

Addiing to the confusion and awkwardness is the phrase "be taken," which serves no purpose whatsoever in the sentence. If it's action, it's being taken, so that phrase is implied.

I would suggest that the sentence reads correctly and much more smoothly this way:

He did not disclose what kind of action Netanyahu recommends.”

This slide show are????

Like most of you, I have friends who send me lots and lots of slide shows and YouTube videos through e-mail. Some I enjoy, and some I just delete. The other day I received one with beautiful photos of our treasured National Parks.

As I told the sender, I loved the photos, but I was not impressed with the first sentence the original sender had affixed to the e-mail:

This slide show of National Parks are in alphabetic order.

This person forgot to mentally remove the prepositional phrase (of National Parks) while deciding what the verb should be. The subject of this sentence is SLIDE SHOW, which is singular. Therefore, the verb should be IS, which is singular.

One more comment: Although "alphabetic" is a word, the preferred form for use when describing the order of words is "alphabetical."

I'd suggest this sentence should read as follows:

This slide show of National Parks is in alphabetical order.

I hope all of you get to visit at least some of these beautiful parks in your lifetime. If you'd like to receive an e-mail with the slide show attached, please leave me a comment. (I promise to correct the sentence before forwarding it!)

Subject Verb Agreement Problem Hinders Good Columnist

I enjoy reading a certain column about investment trends and strategies, but I am bothered by the fact that this columnist does not proofread for good grammar. Here is an example of a problem sentence from an entry last week:

"By implication he was saying that the White House offer of huge regulatory powers were not appealing and had not won him over to allow Treasury control of money."

Whoops! The subject of this sentence is "the White House offer," and there is only ONE offer in the sentence. The prepositional phrase "of huge regulatory powers" does NOT determine whether the verb is singular or plural. Therefore, this sentence should read as follows:

"By implication he was saying that the White House offer of huge regulatory powers was not appealing and had not won him over to allow Treasury control of money."

Please proofread your own writing to make sure you are not using plural verbs with singular subjects.

Have a great day!

Mom or Dad = singular verb

I enjoy keeping up with Stephen Colbert's antics on Comedy Central. One of his shows this week included this phrase:

...while Mom or Dad are fighting for you....

Whoops! If it's Mom OR Dad, not both of them together, fighting for you, then the verb should be singular. The phrase should read as follows:

...while Mom or Dad is fighting for you....

In spite of the grammar glitch, Colbert has a great charity challenge on his show right now. He wants viewers to vote for the branch of the service they want a contribution to go to--Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard. So far, the Coast Guard is lagging in votes.

What is great about this challenge is that the money goes to projects at the SCHOOLS attended by children of men and women serving in these military branches. If you'd like to participate, go to http://www.donorschoose.org/ and make a contribution while voting for one branch of the service.

Right now, either the Air Force or the Coast Guard needs more votes to stay off the bottom of the list.

$300 million IS/ARE?? missing

Money can be tricky when you must decide what is plural and what is singular. Here is part of an example sentence from an article in yesterday's The Birmingham News about the new civil trial of Richard Scrushy:

...creditors began circling after prosecutors said up to $300 million in cash reserves were missing.

In this example, "reserves" is NOT the subject. It is the object of the preposition "in." "Up to $300 million" is a lump sum amount of money and should take a SINGULAR verb.

Note also that, even though this reads out loud as "up to three hundred million dollars," it is written with the $ sign in front of the number.

This portion of the sentence should read as follows:

...creditors began circling after prosecutors said up to $300 million in cash reserves was missing.

A Number? The Number? Has or Have?

Subject/verb agreement can be frustrating, but not getting it right can muddle your writing. In a recent USA Today article about agribusiness, a California poultry veterinarian was quoted as saying this:

It (giving hens more room to move around) has a number of consequences that has potential to be hazardous to bird health and human health.

The basic rule with "number" is that "a number of" is considered plural, as in "A number of my friends have noticed my new car."

However, "the number of" is considered singular, as in "The number of people with new cars is dwindling."

The sentence about the hens should read as follows:

It has a number of consequences that have the potential to be hazardous to bird health and to human health. (In other words, SEVERAL consequences (plural) may result.)

Subject/Verb Agreement Tops My Pet Peeve List

If you check the topic index over to the right, you will notice that I now have 24!! postings about subject/verb agreement. Writers just can't seem to keep this one straight. Here is another example from the local newspaper this week:



Land donations, such as the one from Shelby Farms, helps the university keep the swamp from becoming useless for research.



Here is the process for getting your subject/verb agreement straight.

1) Determine the subject of the sentence. In this case, it is "donations." That is plural and ends in "s."



2) Determine the verb of the sentence. HINT: That is the action the subject is doing. In this case, the donations are helping, so the verb is "helps." Notice that the phrase "such as the one from Shelby Farms" is inserted between the subject and the verb but doesn't affect their relationship.



3) Check to see if the subject and the verb AGREE with each other. In most cases, if the subject ends in "s" as it does here, the verb should NOT end in "s." DONATIONS HELP...ONE DONATION HELPS.



The sentence should read as follows:



Land donations, such as the one from Shelby Farms, help the university keep the swamp from becoming useless for research.

Kiss Performs, but Gene and Paul Perform

Here we go with subject/verb agreement again. The caption for a photo of Kiss performing at the Quilmes Rock 2009 Festival read as follows:



Gene Simmons, left, and Paul Stanley of Kiss performs at the Quilmes Rock 2009 Festival Sunday in Buenos Aires.



If this caption had read "Kiss Performs at the Quilmes Rock 2009 Festival," it would have been fine. Kiss is ONE group, so the verb would end in "s." BUT the subject of this sentence is not "Kiss." It is Gene Simmons AND Paul Stanley (two people), so the verb should not end in "s." The caption should read as follows:



Gene Simmons, left, and Paul Stanley of Kiss perform at the Quilmes Rock 2009 Festival Sunday in Buenos Aires.

Rock on!

2009 Agreement Glitch III

The Alfa magazine, Friends & Family, features an interesting artist in its Winter 2008 issue. Todd Alan "paints" fantastic scenes of the Gulf Shores area with nothing but crayons, and the results are breathtaking.

Unfortunately, the magazine did not proofread carefully enough to catch a glaring subject/verb agreement problem in the first paragraph of the story.

And while the 44-year-old Minnesota native now calls Gulf Shores his home, his childhood love of art and crayons are what makes his creations so unusual and in such high demand.

The main subject of this sentence is LOVE, which is singular. "Of art and crayons" is a prepositional phrase that does not affect the relationship between LOVE and the verb, which should be IS.

The author seems to have had at least an inkling of this problem because she uses MAKES for the second verb. This sentence should read as follows:

And while the 44-year-old Minnesota native now calls Gulf Shores his home, his childhood love of art and crayons is what makes his creations so unusual and in such high demand.

New Year Begins with Agreement Glitches

It is a New Year, but we seem to have the same old grammar issues as last year. Here is an example from a photo caption in The Birmingham News this week:

The Knit Wit knitting group celebrates Christmas and say farewell to (a person) who is returning to India in early January.

GROUP is the subject of this sentence, but whoever wrote it does not seem to know whether to treat that word as singular or plural. The first verb CELEBRATES is singular, but the second verb SAY is plural.

Unfortunately, a writer cannot have it both ways. When a GROUP does something together, all acting as one, the verb should be singular. The sentence should read as follows:

The Knit Wit knitting group celebrates Christmas and says farewell to (a member) who is returning to India in early January.

Happy New Year, Everyone! Let's try to make it a green year and one with fewer grammar glitches.