Seeking expressions or interests

Don't mask your writing with too many unnecessary words.







I have chanced upon an advertisement (in a popular national English daily) inserted by an international company.

The advertisement is titled EXPRESSION OF INTEREST and begins with the following sentence.

Expression of interests are sought for the purchase of condominium units at a location.

Expression of interests is the subject of the sentence and "of interests" is the enlargement of the noun/subject, "expression". If you take away such enlargement, you will notice that the sentence is faulty suffering from noun-verb disagreement.

Usually, converting the noun/subject into a plural one will solve the problem; but it does not appear so in this case since the advertisement is actually seeking interests (and not expressions of interests) for the purchase of condominium units.

Consequently, the most suitable version should be: Interests are sought for the purchase of condominium units at a location.

'Tis the gift to be simple.
-- Shaker Proverb

Administrator vs administratrix

Books are one of the best sources of clearing people's doubts.





Administrator is a person who administers and is in the masculine gender. Its feminine equivalent is administratrix.

However, I have seen the following headline to a news item in a popular national English daily.

Judge removes MJ's mother as administrator of estate.

Such headline should have been Judge removes MJ's mother as administratrix of estate to use the correct gender of the word/noun.

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.
-- Charles W. Eliot

Modifiers

By all means aim longer as long as you can hit the bull's eye.





Modifiers help to make descriptions vivid provided they are placed correctly.

Look at the following sentence taken from a popular national English daily.

He successfully underwent surgery to remove the bullet.

"Successfully" is a modifier which is an adverb modifying the finite verb "underwent". It has the tendency to indicate or imply that the person had a phobia of undergoing surgery and had overcome such phobia and underwent the surgery. However, this does not appear to be real meaning which can be shown by recasting the sentence to be: He underwent surgery to remove the bullet successfully.

Then, the said adverb modifies that non-finite verb (which is an infinitive) "to remove" which is the actual intention of the writer.

Modifiers (which are adjectives and adverbs and their respective phrases and clauses) must be placed as near as possible to the words they modify and if not, the resulting sentences may not reflect the intended meanings.

Delay is preferable to error.
-- Thomas Jefferson

They look the same but are actually not the same

I have seen on numerous ocassions the following advertisement with its headline as "Say NO to Plastic Bags Compaign" appearing on the front page of a popular national English daily.

The first sentence reads, 'Take part in the "Say NO To Plastic Bags" campaign and do your part in saving the environment.'

The headline appears to be calling readers to say no to Plastic Bags Compaign (without elaborating on the compaign); but the first sentence in its first part is urging people to take part in the compaign to say no to Plastic Bags.

The headline should have been "Say NO to Plastic Bags" Compaign in order to be consistent to convey the real theme.