A linguistic style or a mismatch?

Quarrelling with nagging parents who lack trust, feeling unloved and being wrongly accused is almost every young person's dilemma.

This sentence is taken from an English daily's column offering guidances for readers' predicaments.

I am wondering whether it is a stylistic choice for euphony or a mere mismatch in the writer's use of a singular verb following three subjects.

Dilemma is a situation which can be formed by one or more things/actions/feelings/states of mind/events/circumstances. If we try to replace the verb 'is' with 'form', will the sentence become "Quarrelling with nagging parents who lack trust, feeling unloved and being wrongly accused forms or form almost every young person's dilemma?"

Obviously, the plural verb 'form' is to be used since there are three subjects in the form of noun phrases - 'quarrelling with nagging parents', 'feeling unloved' and 'being wrongly accused'.

Shouldn't the answer to the title question be out now?

Long sentences can easily go out of control

Scholastic attainments are in main good ideas presented in good and clear writings.





If we want to write long sentences, we have to be careful to be able to control their flows effectively so as to avoid grammatical errors. Readers will then get their intended meanings easily.

The complaints we have received from our teachers is that much of the paperwork is last minute or done on an ad-hoc basis.

The above sentence highlighted in bold is taken from an item of news (about the call, among other things, for teachers' workload to be reduced) published by a popular national English daily.

If we fail to know what is wrong with the sentence in question, we need to break it down. The words - we have received from our teachers - are an enlargement of the noun 'complaints' in the form of an adjective clause. If we take away this adjective clause, the sentence will become "The complaints is that much of the paperwork is last minute or done on an ad-hoc basis." Now, everybody can notice the mistake of noun-verb disagreement.

Therefore, the sentence should have been "The complaints we have received from our teachers are that much of the paperwork is last minute or done on an ad-hoc basis."

Alternatively, the sentence can be broken up into two shorter sentences as "The complaints are that much of the paperwork is last minute or done on an ad-hoc basis. We have received these complaints from our teachers."

I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.
-- Stendhal

Whoever versus whomever

A deadline should not be met with shoddy work.





He was walking up the stairs and shooting whoever he saw.

The above is a sentence within a news item published by a popular national English daily.

"Whoever" is a pronoun in the subjective case. If we substiture such pronoun with a noun, say 'people'. The sentence will then be 'He was walking up the stairs and shooting people he saw'. By changing 'people' into a pronoun, we should have 'He was walking up the stairs and shooting they or them he saw'.

It is not difficult to realize that after the verb 'was shooting', we need a pronoun in the objective case. Hence, the sentence in question should have been "He was walking up the stairs and shooting whomever he saw ".

We should, however, not be confused with the sentence "Ask whoever is there". Here, 'whoever' cannot be singled out as it is used together with 'is there' to become a noun clause to be the object of the verb 'ask'. The subject of this sentence is 'you' which has been omitted as being understood.

Delay is preferable to error.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Any verb following an auxiliary verb must be in its base form

While physical exercises will rid us of sicknesses, language usage exercises will free our writings from grammatical errors.





My attention has been drawn to a notice (appearing in a popular national English daily) which begins with the following words, "TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERNED".

I have been attracted to the notice not because it concerns me but because a grammatical mistake has been committed in its beginning line or address.

"May" is an auxiliary verb, and any verb that is used after an auxiliary verb must be in its base form. Such begining line of address should have been "TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN" instead.

Such other auxiliary verbs or helping verbs (specifically called modal auxiliaries or modals) include: will, shall, might, can, could, must, ought to, should and would.

Parenthesis/parenthetical clause

Linking what we have learnt to what we see will help us to understand things better.















I remember vividly when I was in school during an English lesson, a question was posted to the class when the whole class gave the wrong answer.

The question was, "Is there anything wrong with the sentence: We feed children whom we think are hungry?"

The whole class considered the sentence correct; and that was a wrong answer.

The sentence should be "We feed children who we think are hungry." In giving such answer, the teacher has explained that 'we think' in the sentence is a parenthesis or a parenthetical clause which has no grammatical function and is there for clarity sake. Such parenthesis or parenthetical clause can be taken out of the sentence without affecting its actual meaning.

Recently, I have seen a sentence of similar construction in a column (designated to promote the correct use of English) of a popular national English daily - It means “Where is that boy whom I think is an idiot?”

I have written an e-mail to the editor of the column asking, "Shouldn't the sentence be:It means “Where is that boy who I think is an idiot?”

I have not received any reply from the editor and have to take it that silence means consent.

Be careful of reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
-- Mark Twain