Rise...has

The Straits Times (Ties that bind companies with volatile shares in Money Companies) - 8 October 2013

The highlighted verb in the business story above is wrong. The correct verb is the singular has. The head noun is the singular rise, not prices or firms.

Sorts of information...are

The Straits Times (Candy Crushed in SundayLife!) - 15 September 2013

The highlighted verb is wrong. The culprit that likely caused the error is the mass noun information. Being right next to the verb, it was probably mistaken as the subject of the sentence.

The correct verb is are:

(1) With technology, all sorts of information are available at my fingertips.

The subject of the sentence is the phrase all sorts of information. The head noun sorts is plural, so a plural verb is needed.

Mistakes like this are so common that if you google the string "sorts of information is", you will get a good many pages of results with exact matches. The two listings below were taken from the first results page:

Google search of "sorts of information is"

One in ten is or are?

Which is the correct verb in the sentence below?

(1) One in ten respondents was/were unhappy with the new rules.

Sometimes the noun is understood and omitted:

(2) One in ten was/were unhappy with the new rules.

Well, it's never an easy answer as both the singular verb and the plural verb have been used in written texts.

Grammatically, the subject of one in Number is one, which is singular and therefore requires a singular verb:

(3) One in ten respondents was unhappy with the new rules.

In formal contexts, the singular verb is less likely to be met with objection.

But, notionally, as others argue, the phrase one in ten respondents refers to not one but some number (of respondents), and therefore requires a plural verb:

(4) One in ten respondents were unhappy with the new rules.

For instance, if there are 500 respondents, one in ten respondents means 50 respondents, a plural sense. This argument is particularly appealing if we use a pronoun test:

(5) One in ten respondents say they do not like the movie.

Sentence (5) uses the plural verb say and the plural pronoun they, both of which (notionally) agree with the plural sense of One in ten respondents.

Contrast (5) with (6) and (7) below:

(6) One in ten respondents says they do not like the movie.
(7) One in ten respondents says he does not like the movie.

In (6), the singular verb says agrees with One but their use is inconsistent with the plural pronoun they.

In (7), the singular says agrees with One but the singular pronoun he is potentially ambiguous as it can be interpreted as referring to someone else other than the head noun One.

That leaves us with sentence (5), which does not suffer from the grammatical inconsistency of (6) and the potential pronoun ambiguity of (7).

So, does that mean we should use the plural verb?

Well, not exactly. As we have hinted at the beginning, there is no clear-cut answer. In formal English, the singular interpretation and hence the singular verb are preferred. The plural verb, while notionally sound, goes against grammar rules and one must be prepared to defend its use.

Number...has

ChannelNewsAsia - 29 June 2013

The plural verb have in the headline is wrong. The noun number in "number of hotspots" refers to a specific number, such as 28, and so requires a singular verb. The correct verb is has, as originally used by PM Lee in the story.

Skips, turns and resists

AsiaOne - 7 June 2013

The verb resist in the headline is not consistent with the two singular verbs skips and turns. The correct verb is resists.

One of the students who...

Which is the correct verb after the relative pronoun who in the sentence below?

(1) One of the students who (was, were) here is John.

Is it was or were?

The answer depends on whether the relative pronoun who refers to students or the head noun One. Accordingly, we can rewrite (1) to illustrate this difference in interpretation:

(2) Of the students, one who was here is John.

(3) Of the students who were here, one is John.

Sentence (2) corresponds to the interpretation in which who refers to the head noune One, and so was is the appropriate verb. Sentence (3) shows that who refers to the plural students, and so were is the appropriate verb.

Interest...drives

ChannelNewsAsia - 5 June 2013

The verb drive in the news headline is wrong. The head noun Interest is singular, so the correct verb is drives.

What does this sentence mean?

What does the following sentence mean to you?

1) I saw the man with a telescope.

Which of the following meanings did you get?

1a) With a telescope, I saw the man.
1b) The man had a telescope and I saw him.

Both readings are reasonably possible, so sentences such as (1) above are said to be syntactically, or structurally, ambiguous because they can be interpreted in more than one way as a result of different underlying structures.

The ambiguity arises because the prepositional phrase with a telescope can modify either the verb saw or the noun phrase the man. Visually, the two possible readings can be represented in tree diagrams:

Reading 1a

Reading 1b

(The tree diagrams were drawn using the software at http://mshang.ca/syntree/)

Structurally ambiguous sentences are not ungrammatical, but they can csuse unnecessary confusion and misinterpretation.

The following is an example of an ambiguous sentence I came across recently:

ChannelNewsAsia - 21 March 2013

The intended meaning is sentence (2a) below:

(2a) To prepare for the meeting, Obama's national security advisor Tom Donilon would go to Beijing on May 26-28.

But the sentence could also have the meaning (2b):

(2b) The meeting is scheduled for May 26-28 and Obama's national security advisor Tom Donilon would go to Beijing to prepare for it.

Loss or lost?

Loss and lost belong to those pairs of words that can be problematic. Perhaps because they sound quite similar.

It is not uncommon to see loss used wrongly as a verb and lost wrongly as a noun:

(1) *No lives were loss in the accident.
(2) *His departure is a great lost.

Example (1) is taken from a recent news article below:

 AsiaOne - 14 April 2013

But loss is a noun, and never a verb. Lost, on the other hand, is the past tense and the past participle of the verb lose. Thus, the correct versions of (1) and (2) are as follows:

(3) No lives were lost in the accident.
(4) His departure is a great loss.

Everyone and their?

Is everyone singular or plural? Most people have no trouble pairing it correctly with a singular verb:

(1) Everyone likes the cake.
(2) Everyone has a role to play.

Hardly would any competent speaker use a plural verb for everyone:

(3) *Everyone like the cake.
(4) *Everyone have a role to play.

And that's all well and good. The indefinite pronoun everyone is singular and there's little confusion or disagreement about that.

Trouble starts when a pronoun is involved:

(5) Has everyone finished their drinks? (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)
(6) Everyone tells us that they enjoyed the movie.

If everyone is singular, why do even competent speakers of English use the plural their or they to refer to it? Is any grammar rule broken when we use their or they for everyone?

Here is what Quirk et al. (221) wrote about they in relation to indefinite pronouns:

The pronoun they is commonly used as a 3rd person singular pronoun that is neutral between masculine and feminine. It is a convenient means of avoiding the dilemma of whether to use the he or she form. At one time restricted to informal usage, it is now increasingly accepted even in formal usage, especially in AmE.

Rather than use he in the unmarked sense or the clumsy he or she, many prefer to seek gender impartiality by using a plural form where possible in reference to the indefinite pronouns everyone, everybody, someone, somebody, anyone, anybody, no one, nobody:

Everyone thinks they have the answer. [1]
Has anybody brought their camera? [2]

...

In formal English, the tendency has been to use he as the unmarked form when the gender is not determined. The formal equivalent of [1], though increasingly ignored, is therefore:

Everyone thinks he has the answer. [1a]

So if you were ever doubtful, you can now set your mind at ease and use they or their to refer to everyone.

However, because everyone and they are generally understood as singular and plural respectively, mixing them can sometimes raise eyebrows.

In formal writings, therefore, the more careful writers prefer to use his or the less sexist his or her:

(7) Has everyone finished his drink?
(8) Has everyone finished his or her drink?

To avoid the problematic everyone and they, a common approach is to rewrite by making the subject plural:

(9) All of them tell us that they enjoyed the movie.

Contributions...are

AsiaOne - 28 February 2013

The head noun contributions is plural, so the correct verb should have been are.

Stative vs dynamic verbs

(1) ?John is knowing the answer.

The ? indicates oddity, but why does the sentence sound odd? Grammatically, the sentence seems fine if we contrast it with (2) below:

(2) John is painting the house.

Both have the same structure of a present progressive, but why is (2) a possible English sentence but not (1)?

The answer lies in the difference between stative and dynamic verbs.

Stative verbs are verbs that express a state. This state or condition is relatively stable and homogenous through time, and can be conceptualized as being contractable or expandable.

Dynamic verbs, on the other hand, are verbs that describe an action. This action normally involves some change of state and has a limited duration or a well-defined beginning and end.

The difference is an important one.

A dynamic verb in the present progressive, such as painting in sentence (2), can signify an on-going activity coinciding with present time.

A stative verb such as know, on the other hand, cannot normally be marked progressive. Being indefinitely contractable or expandable, it is easily accommodated by the present-time frame:

(3) John knows the answer.

And therefore the progressive aspect is redundant, which explains why sentence (1) is odd.

An US soldier?

ChannelNewsAsia - 3 March 2013

The article An before US is wrong. The correct article is A, because the initial sound in US is the consonant "j".

The trick is to remember that the indefinite article rule applies to sounds, not letters. So we say an umbrella, but a unicorn.

Less vs fewer

People sometimes confuse less with fewer. Particularly with less, the common mistake is to use it when fewer is the correct word:

(1) ?We had less customers yesterday.

Though both words mean not as many, they are used differently. The general rule is to use less for uncountable nouns and fewer for countable nouns:

Less for uncountable nouns

(2) There is less traffic now.
(3) I listen to less music when I'm travelling.
(4) There's less smoke here.
(5) I drank less coffee yesterday.

Fewer for countable nouns

(6) She made fewer calls last week.
(7) I had fewer coins than you.
(8) Fewer than 50 people attended the talk.
(9) There are fewer mistakes in her essay.

However, with nouns that denote time, money and distance, we use less:

(10) He had less than three hours to make a decision.
(11) I had less than ten dollars in my pocket.
(12) She ran less than five kilometres.

Swings...were

Straits Times - 16 January 2013

The highlighted verb is wrong. The correct verb is were.

As has been noted elsewhere in this blog, this kind of subject-verb agreement mistake is common because the head noun is obscured by intervening elements.

In the above, the head noun swings is buried in a noun phrase (NP) modified by a long prepositional phrase (PP):

[the swings [in voter sentiment among the undecided middle ground]PP]NP

The prepositional phrase contains two singular nouns (sentiment and ground), either of which could have been mistaken as the subject, leading to the wrong use of was.

Here's another one from the online ChannelNewsAsia:

ChannelNewsAsia - 23 January 2013

The correct verb is was since the head noun nature is singular.

Tag questions

A tag question is a short yes-no question appended to a statement, usually a declarative sentence:

(1) Peter lives here, doesn't he?

The main statement is highlighted in blue, and the tag question in orange.

The tag question consists of two parts: an operator and a pronoun. In  (1), the operator is doesn't and the pronoun is he.

There are three important things to learn about a tag question.

Firstly, the tag question is negative if the statement is positive and vice versa:

(2) She drives a BMW, doesn't she?
(3) She doesn't drive, does she?

Secondly, the choice of operator is related to the verb in the statement. In general, the type of verb and the corresponding operator can be divided into the three groups below:

i) With auxiliary verbs, the operator is formed with the auxiliary verb:

(4) He is working today, isn't he?
(5) They weren't at the party, were they?
(6) We have seen this before, haven't we?

ii) With modal verbs, the operator is formed with the modal verb:

(4) He can sue the paper, can't he?
(5) The children couldn't hear us, could they?
(6) She won't lie to us, will she?

iii)  If the main verb is neither an auxiliary nor modal verb, the question tag uses an appropriate form of do:

(7) Sally plays tennis, doesn't she?
(8) The two boys swam in the river, didn't they?
(9) You don't live here, do you?

But note the exceptions below:

(10) I'm the tallest, aren't I? (informally)
(11) She has a talent for singing, doesn't she?

The formal equivalent of (10) is (12) below:

(12) I am the tallest person, am I not?

Thirdly, the pronoun in the tag refers to the subject in the main clause:

(13) Sue came last night, didn't she?
(14) His dogs are fierce, aren't they?
(15) Mary and her friends will be here soon, won't they?
(16) These oranges are sweet, aren't they?

The problem with "There"

Most of us are familiar with the subject-verb agreement rule exemplified in the sentences below:

(1) A tree is uprooted.
(2) Many trees are uprooted.

In (1), the simple subject is the singular noun tree and it agrees in number with the singular verb is. In (2), the plural subject trees agrees in number with the plural verb are.

Notice that the subject in each sentence precedes the verb, so its grammatical number is known before the verb is introduced. For this reason, it's much easier to choose the right verb.

When a sentence begins with There, we have a different subject-verb agreement order. Although There precedes the verb, it doesn't determine subject-verb agreement. Linguists call There a dummy subject:

(3) There is a tree.
(4) There are trees.

The singular verb is in (3) is determined by the singular noun tree, not by There. Similarly, the plural are in (4) is determined by the plural trees. It may be helpful to think of tree and trees in (3) and (4) respectively as delayed subjects.

Because the true subject in (3) and (4) follows the verb, it's not so obvious what verb is required. Consequently, the wrong singular verb is commonly used:

ChannelNewsAsia - 13 January 2013

The delayed subject is the plural leads, and so the correct verb is have: Law and Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said there have been some leads on the recent case of cat mutilation.

Is Some singular or plural?

Does some take a singular or plural verb?

The answer depends.

Indefinite pronouns such as some can be singular or plural depending what they are referring to. With countable nouns, some requires a plural verb while with uncountable nouns, some requires a singular verb:

(1) Some books are missing.
(2) Some rice was stolen.

It doesn't matter whether some is modified by a prepositional phrase:

(3) Some of the books are missing.
(4) Some of the rice was stolen.

In the screenshot below, some refers to information, which is uncountable. The correct verb is has:

ChannelNewsAsia - 11 January 2013