Subject-Verb Disagreements and Misplaced Modifiers often seen in Newspapers

Newspapers always strive to provide striking news/headlines which must, however, be grammatical and unambiguous, to attract readers.



Sentences in newspapers are frequently found to contain the irregularies mentioned above.

Quoted below are two examples taken from a national daily on the same day:-

(1) For the millions of people, dreadful train rides is a price they must pay.

(2) He admitted to spying on the 40-year-old woman by switching his mobile phone to video mode and placing it on a pipe under the basin in a toilet of the restaurant where he worked on July 25 last year.

In sentence (1), the subject rides which is a plural noun is accompanied by a singular verb is. The sentence should have been - For the millions of people, dreadful train ride is a price they must pay.

In (2), on July 25 last year (an adverb phrase of time) can be seen to modify worked while it actually modifies spying. Hence, the sentence should have been He admitted to spying on the 40-year-old woman on July 25 last year by switching his mobile phone to video mode and placing it on a pipe under the basin in a toilet of the restaurant where he worked.

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.
-- Charles Dickens