Article with a grammatical error

Recently as I was reading an English daily, I came across an article (written by a doctor) which provided a smooth reading until I reached its penultimate paragraph.

Just one sentence was contained in that paragraph which read, "Perhaps the government's efforts to organise new gatherings is one such novel way of sustaining traditional practices."

The subject of the sentence is efforts which is a plural noun and which is erroneously matched with a singular verb is.

Hence, there is a need to amend the subject into a singular one to make the sentence grammatical: "Perhaps the government's effort to organise new gatherings is one such novel way of sustaining traditional practices."

Mind your own language

The above is the title/heading of an article written by a retired English teacher and published by The Star's Mind Our English column on February 5, 2010.

The writer is suggesting that someone in The Star look (should be 'looks') for flaws in the publication itself.

After reading the article, I have been thinking based on my personal experiences and come to the conclusion that such a suggestion will fall on deaf ears. I have on numerous occasions written in to point out grammatical mistakes in the publication. Some are published, some have answers directly sent to me and some are ignored.

The column is the result of a campaign launched in 2001 to promote the correct use of English; but one will see that quite a lot of articles nowadays published therein appear to teach/train its readers to be experts in the English language especially in etymology and pronunciation. How many of these articles are actually appreciated by readers?

Perhaps, the publication has thought that the column's original objective has been achieved; but judging from the aforesaid article, one will be able to perceive that this is far from it as can also be seen from another article Of goofs and gaffes.

The Past Perfect (Pluperfect) Tense

The above tense is invariably advised by any grammar guide to be used only to indicate the existence of some state/being or the happening/supposed completion/completion of some event/action earlier than or before another (all these being in the past).

However, I have observed that such tense (highlighted by me in bold) being inappropriately used in two sentences of two separate news items of an English daily today.

Road users have to turn away as constant pounding of the waves along the beach had caused a stretch of the costal road at Kampong Pantai Tok Jembai, Kuala Terengganu, to cave in.

Here, the past perfect (pluperfect) tense is used to describe one action only, and hence, the present perfect tense (has caused) is more appropriate as it depicts the present state which is turning away road users.

Almost nine in 10 American teenage girls say that they feel pressured by the fashion and media industries to be skinny and that an unrealistic, unattainable image of beauty had been created.

Here again, such tense (which is in the passive voice) is showing the creation of one action or thing (image) which is still prevailing in the feeling of nine in 10 American teenage girls - necessitating the use of the present perfect tense (has been created) instead.

Kengt, Penang, 03FEB10

Subject/verb agreement

While reading today's newspaper, I encounter the following sentence in the subheading of a news item:-

A cure for serious ailments with added benefits of smoother, flawless skin, slimmer figure and increased libido are just some false claims associated with traditional medicines.

The subject of the sentence is the part before the verb of incomplete predication 'are'. In fact, the subject is 'cure', the rest being its enlargement.

One will see that a singular noun 'cure' is being matched with a plural verb 'are' here. A correction is, therefore, necessary.

The 'are' can be replaced by its singular equivalent 'is', but the sentence will be awkward as this singular verb is having its complement represented by a plural noun 'claims'.

The logical way will be to change its subject into a plural one and the sentence will sound all right:

Cures for serious ailments with added benefits of smoother, flawless skin, slimmer figure and increased libido are just some false claims associated with traditional medicines.