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.