Number again

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number

I’ve complained here before, several times, about people’s giving a verb the number of the nearest noun, rather than that of the noun that’s doing the action.  Usually, it’s a plural verb that ought to be singular, but today I came across a singular verb that ought to be plural, so I thought I’d mention it here:

As you may have seen, there are some “one time affects” from a large cash infusion that is very hard to explain.

The writer misspells effects, which is not unusual, and seems to consider a large cash infusion very hard to explain.  She or he is in fact referring to those one-time effects, which he or she should have said, “are very hard to explain;” but “infusion” got in the way, and compelled her or him to use the number of that, instead of the number of the things that were hard to explain.  Why don’t people think about what they write?

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Another Strange Plural

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conjunctions, number, Scientific American

They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But sometimes what makes you stronger can kill you, at least when it comes to blood clotting. Because the stickiness that allow platelets to heal your wounds also raises your risk of heart attack.

Karen Hopkin, “Birds Show Price Humans Pay for Good Clotting”, “The Sciences 60-Second Science” (podcast), Scientific American, 3 November 2003: https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/birds-show-price-humans-pay-for-goo-11-11-03/

What noun is governing the number of “allow” in this quotation?  Is the writer misled by the the -s in stickiness, or the plural platelets?  Either way, it should be “allows”, because the (singular) noun stickiness is doing the allowing.

I sometimes begin a sentence here with a conjunction, such as but or and, which I was taught not to do (and I wouldn’t do it in formal writing, but this is a blog).  But I don’t think I ever follow one of those sentences with another that begins with because.  Because beginning two sentences in a row with conjunctions is too much.  Well, it’s a podcast, after all.

Another Undead Metaphor!

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idioms, number

Maybe two!  Internal e-mail from a major pharmaceutical company, December 2017, transmitting news reports on the company’s recent clinical trials:

Overall, a very positive feedback, recognizing the innovation generated at [our Company]. Still, the white elephant in the room are the biosimilars, but the continued innovation generated by us is also recognized by the market in helping us to balance the outlook during this time period.

The metaphor, white elephant, has been killed and revivified as a variant of the metaphor, elephant in the room.  I don’t think either metaphor expresses what the writer is trying to say, if anything.  A white elephant is a precious but useless gift which is burdensome to keep but can’t be discarded for fear of offending the giver.  The elephant in the room is the obvious thing that’s making everybody uncomfortable, but which nobody wants to talk about.  All the writer seems to have in mind is “the important thing not mentioned in these news articles”, which neither metaphor expresses.

There’s also a number problem, of course.

Not to mention “during this time period”.

More on Number Agreement

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CNN, number

How about this one:

But the authors highlight that their study account for people who may have changed their drinking habits and relied on data from people reporting their own drinking habits.

Meera Senthilingam, “Even one drink a day could be shortening your life expectancy”, CNN, 13 April 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/health/too-much-alcohol-drinking-limits-shorter-life-expectancy/index.html

What noun is governing number in the verb “account” here?  Authors?  People?

Number and Amount

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amount, New York Times, number, paid praters

I just remembered something else that copy-editors do at newspapers:  they write cutlines, that is, the captions to pictures.  (In newspaper jargon, a picture is a cut.)  Here’s one from the New York Times:

Two images of the same cuttlefish, taken fewer than two seconds apart, showing how quickly it can change color.

The copy-editor (or whoever wrote that cutline) is to be commended for trying to get the distinction between less and fewer right, but this time she or he failed.

We use less to express amount and fewer to express number.  The important concept in this cutline is not the number of seconds involved, but the amount of time.

Writing and Thinking

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agreement, CNN, gerunds, number, paid praters

Dear Reader, maybe you think I’m too hard on our paid praters, the people who make their living by generating verbiage for mass-consumption.  Maybe I am.  After all, they have a twenty-four-hour news cycle to contend with.  They must churn out the words in a constant stream, and they don’t have time to worry about things like grammar and style.

Well, in my opinion, if they don’t have time to write well, they shouldn’t be writing.  Bad writing is a product of sloppy thinking, and it spreads sloppy thinking.  People who read or hear bad writing naturally pick it up and imitate it when they speak or write.  They quit thinking about what they’re saying or writing, and content themselves with saying approximately what they mean to say.

An easy example, which we encounter almost every day, is misplaced number agreement:

The trouble with these airplanes are that they’re too noisy.

(I’m not quoting anybody here, but I’m sure you can find any number of real examples.)  I have the impression that people nowadays get this kind of thing wrong at least as often as they get it right.  The verb is given the number of the nearest noun (“airplanes are”), even if that noun isn’t the agent of the verb (“the trouble . . . are”).

Here’s a more elaborate example by a paid prater:

According to the magazine, McDougal, a Republican, was at first reluctant to speak about her alleged affair during the presidential campaign, fearing that Trump supporters might accuse her of fabricating her account or harming her or her family.

Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/16/politics/donald-trump-karen-mcdougal-national-enquirer/index.html.

As written, the sentence declares that

1. McDougal was afraid
2. McDougal was afraid that Trump supporters might accuse her
3. McDougal was afraid that Trump supporters might accuse her of fabricating her account
4. McDougal was afraid that Trump supporters might accuse her of harming her
5. McDougal was afraid that Trump supporters might accuse her of harming her family.

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that that is not what the reporter meant to declare.  I think that what she meant to declare was

1. McDougal was afraid
2. McDougal was afraid that Trump supporters might accuse her of fabricating her account
3. McDougal was afraid that Trump supporters might harm her
4. McDougal was afraid that Trump supporters might harm her family.

Does it matter that that’s not what she wrote?  You tell me, Dear Reader—but if your answer is “No,” please make an argument to support it.