A conjunction is required to join two sentences (or clauses) together

In the movie, the wizard reacts to the scarecrow's desire for a brain by explaining that the brain is actually a very mediocre commodity every living creature has one.

The above sentence is taken from an article published by a popular national English daily.

I call it a sentence because it begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop. However, if one carefully examines it, one will discover that it actually contains two sentences (or two noun clauses) that need to be joined together by means of a conjunction.

Hence, the sentence in question should have been "In the movie, the wizard reacts to the scarecrow's desire for a brain by explaining that the brain is actually a very mediocre commodity and every living creature has one. "

“Been” for “being”

The sentence below is taken from a letter written by apparently a medical doctor and published by a popular English daily.

It is the experience of many private physicians that often such patients are afraid to return the excess or unused medicine for fear of been penalised.

Obviously “for fear of been penalised” should have been “for fear of being penalised”.

Such anomaly seems to occur quite frequently apart from this and those other cases mentioned in my earlier posting herein on February 4, 2008.

Noun/pronoun disagreement and ambiguity

Malaysian durians are expected to sell like hot cakes compared with the ones from Thailand due to its tasty flesh.

The above sentence is taken from a news item in a popular national English daily.

The possessive pronoun 'its' refers to the durians and can stand for Malaysian or Thailand ones though syntax favours the former. Here lies the ambiguity apart from the incongruent matching of a plural noun with a singular pronoun.

Besides, the above use of 'due to' (regarded as an adjective phrase) is stated to be incorrect in the older editions of Oxford Concise Dictionary.

The sentence in question can be recast into a more appropriate one as "Malaysian durians are expected to sell like hot cakes compared with those from Thailand owing to the former's tasty flesh.

The ever-confusing "Who/Whom"

So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.'

The above sentence is taken from an e-mail which I have received recently.

Here, the 'who' appears to be inappropriate. It should represent the people you may have injured and 'injured' is a transitive verb that takes an object.

As the relative pronoun 'who' (in the subjective case) should be in the objective case, the sentence should have been: So you say to people whom you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.'

The clause 'you think' is a parenthetical clause/parenthesis which can be set off by commas and it has no grammatical relations in the sentence.

Noun/Verb Disagreement

With the growth of online shopping over the past few years, the demand of online payment methods have visibly grew.

I have found the above sentence in an English daily.

The subject of the sentence is 'demand' which requires to be accompanied by a singular verb, but it has been matched by a plural verb which is in the present perfect tense. The 'grew' should be in the past participle.

Hence, the sentence in question should have been in either of the following versions:-

"With the growth of online shopping over the past few years, the demand of online payment methods has visibly grown." or "With the growth of online shopping over the past few years, online payment methods have visibly grown."