Monday, December 1, 2008

Typesetting errors?

Slips/errors still occur even though a lot of guards are in place.

The two adjoining sentences below are taken from the advice/solution provided for a reader’s problem in It’s her choice to make (which was among the TOP 5 MOST VIEWED STORIES ONLINE on its day of publication).

“The early months of romance are always more exciting and remarkable. Especially when the lady is in distress, seeks you out to the rescue.”

The second sentence has in its first part an adverb clause, ‘Especially when the lady is in distress’. What follows is the main clause, ‘seeks you out to the rescue’; but there is no subject in this main clause. The sentence is, hence, incomplete or ungrammatical. A subject (which is ‘the lady’ or a pronoun ‘she’) must be added before 'seeks'.

Alternatively, the two sentences can be merged into one as ‘The early months of romance are always more exciting and remarkable especially when the lady is in distress and seeks you out to the rescue.’

The above mistake/s may be due to a ‘mis-set’ in typesetting and may not be attributed to the writer, however.

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