Quality matters

AsiaOne - 24 May 2012

The verb matter should be matters, since the head noun quality is singular.

In the original Straits Times report, the verb used by Mr Lee was the singular counts.

Curious about whether Microsoft Word's Spelling and Grammar checker would find any fault with the sentence, I copied and pasted it into Microsoft Word 2007.

In the Suggestions, the grammar checker merely reports "that while PM Lee fully understands the desire for alternate voices in parliament, it is the quality of these voices that matter" as "Wordiness (consider revising)".

Not very helpful in what I was hoping it would do, so I shortened the sentence to "It is the quality of these voices that matter."

Same unhelpful suggestion as above about the sentence being wordy, so I shortened it even further to "The quality of these voices that matter".

The (ungrammatical) sentence passed the grammar check, with or without the relative pronoun that.