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Add Your Own Criminal Sentence!

If you find a particularly terrible sentence somewhere, post it for all to see (go here and put it in the Comments section).

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Criminal Sentence 652: Involve Yourself in Correct Agreement

From a newspaper article about Plan B:

"The involvement of parents and medical professionals act as a safeguard for these young girls."

This is a classic subject-verb agreement error. The subject is "involvement" (singular) but the verb is "act" (plural). That pesky prepositional phrase ("of parents and medical professionals") got in the way.

The sentence should read as follows:

"The involvement of parents and medical professionals acts as a safeguard for these young girls."

This is still not a great sentence. I would suggest changing it to this:

"By becoming involved, parents and medical professionals act as safeguards for these young girls."

Monday, June 10, 2013

Criminal Sentence 651: Ow! My Brain Hurts!

A typical sentence from something I'm editing:

Ok, the Doctor say's, I'm going to prescribe this anti-inflammatory, this should help you.

No quotation marks.
Incorrect capitalization.
Unneeded apostrophe.
Comma splice.

Owie. I'm too tired to fix it.
 

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Criminal Sentence 650: Three Son's?

As I was on the freeway today, I had the privilege of driving next to a truck with the following business name painted on the side:

"Three Son's Trucking"

I frowned but did not crash.

"Three Son's" is never allowed in English! Or any other language!