{"id":3189,"date":"2019-07-02T23:00:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T05:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=3189"},"modified":"2020-12-09T16:30:35","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T22:30:35","slug":"how-did-they-get-in-here-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/effective-writing\/how-did-they-get-in-here-2\/","title":{"rendered":"How Did They<\/em> Get In Here?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writers today have problems keeping their sentences internally consistent. This is especially true of print journalists. Because of staff cutbacks at financially challenged newspapers, many articles are proofread hastily, if at all.<\/p>\n

Combine that with the shocking decline in Americans\u2019 English language skills over the last fifty years or so and you get sentences unworthy of the average sixth-grader in 1963. Here is a sentence from a recent article in a major metropolitan newspaper on the West Coast: \u201cEach side in the condo fight has spent more than $350,000 on their campaigns \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Everything is fine until that jarring \u201ctheir\u201d at the end. Go back to the subject: \u201ceach side.\u201d The writer is talking about two things but is taking them one at a time\u2014each side has spent<\/em>, not have spent<\/em>. So writing \u201ctheir\u201d confounds the ground rules of the sentence. It\u2019s like setting the table with a fork and then eating with your hands.<\/p>\n

This is an easy one to fix: \u201cEach side in the condo fight has spent more than $350,000 on its campaign<\/em>\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

POP QUIZ<\/h2>\n

The following sentences or fragments from recent print or broadcast media reflect contemporary bad habits. Can you fix them?<\/p>\n

1. McDonalds is doing everything they can to shift costs to operators.
\n2. There needs to be better screening and a more foolproof monitoring system.
\n3. East Haven, Conn. plane crash \u2026
\n4. No listener is ever happy with how much time they get.
\n5. He didn\u2019t believe in the peoples\u2019 right to know.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

POP QUIZ ANSWERS<\/h3>\n

These are suggested answers. There may be more than one way to fix some of these items.<\/p>\n

1. McDonalds is doing everything it can to shift costs to operators.
\n2. There need to be better screening and a foolproof monitoring system. (In addition to using the plural verb need<\/em>\u00a0to agree with the subjects screening<\/em> and system<\/em>, the redundant more<\/em>\u00a0has been dropped.)
\nOR
\nBetter screening and a foolproof monitoring system are needed.
\n3. East Haven, Conn., plane crash \u2026
\n4. No listeners are ever happy with how much time they get.
\n5. He didn\u2019t believe in the people\u2019s right to know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writers today have problems keeping their sentences internally consistent. This is especially true of print journalists. Because of staff cutbacks at financially challenged newspapers, many articles are proofread hastily, if at all. Combine that with the shocking decline in Americans\u2019 English language skills over the last fifty years or so and you get sentences unworthy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,13,12,34,26,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apostrophes","category-commas","category-effective-writing","category-possessives","category-singular-vs-plural","category-subject-and-verb-agreement"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}