Ask Me a Question

If you have a writing, grammar, style or punctuation question, send an e-mail message to curiouscase at sign hotmail dot com.

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).

Monday, December 6, 2010

Poll Results 114

Here was the question:

What's the best way to rewrite this? "As the owner of your business, it is imperative that you learn about the business."

As the owner of your business,
it is imperative that you learn about it. 13 (21%)

As the owner of your business, you
must learn about the business. 12 (20%)

As the owner of your business,
you must learn about it. 27 (45%)

No rewriting necessary. 9 (13%)


Congrats to 45% of you. The initial problem here is that "it" can't follow "As the owner of your business." "You" needs to go there. The second item to be concerned about is the repetition of the word "business." Therefore, the third choice is best.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Detective Pinkersolve,

Is it wrong to interpret the first business as the entreprise you own and the second business as the very industry that your establishment specializes in?

The Sentence Sleuth said...

Hi. It's Bonnie!
Anyway, yes, the person writing this sentence was talking about only one business.