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."

Correct use of phrases

Entering Form Four, if one chose to study in the Science stream, it was as good as studying in an English school because General Mathematics, Additional Mathematics, General Science, Pure Science, Chemistry, Physics and Biology were taught in English.

"Entering Form Four" in the above sentence (which is taken from an article of a popular national English daily) can be a noun phrase or an adjective phrase.

If it is a noun phrase, the phrase has rendered the following preparatory pronoun 'it' redundant; but if it is an adjective phrase, this participial phrase appears to qualify the said pronoun 'it' making its description out of place.

To be grammatically sound, the sentence needs to be reworded as "If one entering Form Four chose to study in the Science stream, it was as good as studying in an English school because General Mathematics, Additional Mathematics, General Science, Pure Science, Chemistry, Physics and Biology were taught in English."

Of course, it can also be "If one chose to study in the Science stream when entering Form Four, it was as good as studying in an English school because General Mathematics, Additional Mathematics, General Science, Pure Science, Chemistry, Physics and Biology were taught in English."

For participial phrases, please see my earlier posting of December 21, 2009.

Adverb to modify adjective

Personal Internet Banking will be temporary unavailable on
10 April, 2011 from 5:00am - 7:00am.

I have come across the above notice from a bank's website.

We need to use an 'adverb' to modify an 'adjective' to make the latter's description clearer.

The aforesaid notice should have been worded as "Personal Internet Banking will be temporarily unavailable on 10 April, 2011 from 5:00am - 7:00am.