Shome Mishtakes

It's easy to make a mistake but not always so obvious what you should have said in the first place. In some cases the sentence can be put into beautiful English with just a little rearrangement. So don't just sit there passively reading this. Take an active part by rendering  these sentences into trouble-free English! 

1.    "He learned to make a trombone from his uncle."
                *Stephen Evans, From Our Foreign Correspondent BBC Radio 4 11:55; 11/03/2013

2.      "The politics here are very interesting."
                 *"expert* on network radio

3.       "Their arms make up the majority of their body weight, and contain most of the nervous   
             system."
               * BBC Nature, April 3 2013

Correctives for Collectives

A reader writes:                                                             Dear Sir,

In her article on the new Chinese leader (p. 29 Guardian, Saturday edition 16/3/13) Tania Branigan referred to his father as 'a mid-ranking cadre'. The word "cadre" should not be used of an individual as it is a collective noun (as are "elite" and "cohort"). The word "cadre" comes from the French word meaning a " frame" (as in picture) and refers to what we would call a "cell" of revolutionaries. The gentleman may have been a member of a cadre but he cannot have been a cadre by himself.

Yours faithfully,

                                                                                         Peter Evans

In days gone by we had lessons in English grammar and we did exercises in collective nouns. Nowadays, schooling is so patchy that many of us pick up our English on the hoof. Collectives group elements into a set, either explicitly (a pride of lions, an observance of hermits) or implicitly (team, government, audience).

Bog-standardly, when one is thinking of the group as a unit it behaves as a singular noun because the group is conceived of as one entity.

The government is sitting. (It doesn't mean they have only one rump.)

My flock of sheep has gone astray. (As Bo Peep might say, given that the component sheep often go off en masse.)

Where is my team? (phone-call to the bus company with dodgy navigation.)

Things are slightly complicated by a singular-to-plural metonymic shift- peculiar, by and large, to English-where we use the collective noun but have in mind the members of the group. This should not be thought of as being on the same footing as the above bog-standard rule, but as a development of it.

The team are going to their homes after the match.
(Here we are thinking of the members of the team each going to his or her separate domicile. If you were to say "The team is going to its home after the match" it would suggest they all lived under one roof.)

The government are doing well.

This usage often sounds weird to foreign speakers of English when they first rub up against it because of the singular noun and plural verb.

There are cases when the plurality of the complement tips the balance quite solidly in favour of a plural. For example, it would grate on the sensitive ear to have to metabolise:

My family is farmers.

We say instead:

My family are farmers.

Note: for those who dislike cognitive dissonance, all ambiguity can usually be removed by expanding the phrase to refer explicitly to its components: "members of the government" , or "the members of my Physics class", or changing to the elements of the class rather than the class (My sheep are lost.)

One thing, however, you may not do is refer to a member of a group as if the member were the group. This is because, unlike in maths, sets have to have more than one member to justify their linguistic existence. That is, collectives start from couples or indefinite numbers:

The happy couple has arrived. (singular)

The couple do not meet each other until the ceremony.

And notice the difference in meaning between:

The couple were fighting all the way through the ceremony. (sc. each other)

The couple was fighting all the way through the ceremony. (sc. other people)

An exception to this rule about groups of less than two are found in explicit jokes: "He wants to form a government of one."- (Ha Ha!) "A club with no members".

The use of collectives requires making choices which means rule-bound users often fail to be sensitive to the nuances involved, and Pedanticus's postbag bulges with such errors..

I have here sketched in only a few details about collectives, but enough, I hope, for you to realise why the usage referred to in the reader's letter above is uncomfortable, or as we used to say, "wrong"!

Reign Ends — Here Comes the Son!

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, the oldest reigning Dutch monarch, announced her abdication yesterday...-     [Guardian 29/01/2013, p 14] Oh yes? How many reigning monarchs do they have, then? — sent in by Sam Howison

This conflates two conflicting ideas. The oldest reigning Dutch monarch implies that there are at least two other reigning Dutch monarchs. But there is only ever at most one reigning monarch. This is underlined by the meaning of the word monarch (from the Greek sole and rule). The word the in the phrase the Dutch monarch correctly asserts this singularity.

But the adjectival phrase oldest reigning invites —  through the word oldest — comparison with at least two other reigning monarchs in respect of age. It does this by adding further elements to a set which we have just shown may be occupied — by definition — by, at most, a single member. That is the jarring grind in the gears of the sentence. Some feel at once and intuitively, and others — not at all!

Reigning has the effect here of making the tense present. After all, all monarchs that are monarchs (as opposed to ones who were once monarchs) are by definition reigning monarchs. All those that were once and no longer are monarchs were once reigning monarchs but no longer are.

So much for what is wrong. But can it be set right? If it can, how can it be done? How should one tease apart these two conflicting strands? The following, though not inspired, is at least free from internal contradiction:

"Queen Beatrix, who has ruled longer than any other Dutch monarch, announced her abdication yesterday..."

Oh Deer!

On the BBC website* we read that an estate owner has warned that the culling of red deer has damaged Scotland's deer stalking economy. I raise a slight eyebrow over his warning us about things that have already happened, but I am interested in deer and stalking and culling and the like, so I read on. Jamie Williamson of Strathspey— for it is he— tells us that:

What we are seeing are less mature stags on the hill

Now this is of course important to know. But however vital his information is, he really ought to say fewer mature stags, as that is clearly what he has in mind; particularly since less mature stags means something entirely different, namely more immature stags. Presumably the sort more likely to misbehave at stag parties.

But don't blame Auntie. Not for this at any rate. For what is the BBC to do? You need to report oratio recta as it happens, warts and all, and may only correct in oratio obliqua. And if you put '(sic)' after the offending phrase it would be as socially acceptable to your interlocutor as jabbing him in the eye with an antler. Quoting is quoting.

The usage "What we are seeing is X", is of course pleonastic. I used to know someone who went around prefacing far too much of what he said with "What I say is", or "What I do is". But to say, "What I say is 'the sky is blue'" when all you have on your mind is the proposition, "The sky is blue"; or to say "What I hate is pork pies," when you wish merely to convey that "I hate pork pies"** does deserve a poke in the eye with the antler of a rutting stag. Not all people are good at speaking well or interestingly; but if you can't make it sweet you should at least make it short.

Life is too short to add an extra set of parentheses to every proposition. That's like wearing gloves to everything.

* Here's the link, since you ask:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-20875309

** Yes, Ludwig, except when it is called for by some poetic, metalinguistic or philosophical purpose. For example I make an exception for those deep discussions where philosophers doubt the very existence of things while busily scoffing my doughnuts.

Check Twice, Print Once

Pedanticus says:

If you are going to print a leaflet about something dear to your heart it is worth checking it is correct, either yourself or with the help of a proofreader.

Which striking error occurs on both sides of this leaflet?

What is gratingly wrong about the phrase:

"Information, advice or support about these changes"

Point to Ponder

Is "may" the mot juste in the phrase "how they may affect you"?

Expect Better!

Anticipate does not mean the same as expect. It means to do something before something else happens. For example:

                The runner anticipated the starter's gun.

means that the runner started before the starter fired his gun.

If you screw a screw in with a chisel you not only damage the screw- you also damage the chisel. By using anticipate because you are too lazy or indiscriminate to reach for expect you are taking the edge off anticipate, which is a fine word having a specific and definite function.

I heard it today on Radio 4 and shuddered as if someone had drawn cat's claws across a blackboard.

Spelling Mistakes Are Costly

When the HSBC branch on London Road North in Lowestoft re-opened after extensive refurbishment on Thursday April 1st 2010 it sported an incorrect spelling of the town name. Ironic for a bank whose catchphrase is "world's local bank".

Locals soon spotted the error, and to the credit of the shamefaced bank the sign was covered with tape by Saturday and replaced with a correct one by Tuesday.

“We have to hold up our hands and say we made a mistake. We are sorry and hope the people of Lowestoft realise this was simply a genuine mistake," said the HSBC spokesman. “Lowestoft is a very important town to us and that is why so many improvements have been carried out in the branch. As soon as the mistake was realised we made arrangements to have it corrected so that the town’s name was correctly spelt.”

A good spokesman, that— at once leaping in, apologising, and limiting the damage by distracting the attention from the cock-up, but nevertheless one whose good work would have been quite unnecessary if someone had thought to check the spelling of the town they were in.

The fact is, such mistakes are a serious business in business. They are not just embarrassing. They can undermine trust and respect in a brand. They prompt the idea: if they can't even spell our town name right, what else are they careless over?

—Thanks to Jo Perry of Lowestoft for alerting me to this example of corporate carelessness