A Grammatical Error?
January 8, 2006 @ 4:45 pm
This from page 85 of January 9th's New Yorker: "What those of us who know Agee's criticism almost by heart read over and over, however, is [sic] the reviews that appeared in The Nation. Some of them are no more than a few sentences or a phrase."
Is the reviews? I make no claims as to the quality of my own writing style, but I expect better from the New Yorker. I certainly never thought I'd have to sic a quote from them.
Replies: 6 Comments
my undergrad put out hundreds of tshirts that read "upfront fees is a crime against humanity" to which i like to respond "oh is they? is they really?" heh
miranda said on January 9, 2006 @ 10:39 am
meh, everyone is human, right? i can forgive the New Yorker for their sloppy syntax. At least they didn't make up stories like the New York Times did with Mr. Blair nice blog/website by the way, I found it when I did a search on "boxy 80s glasses". aiy, the wonders of the internet
christian said on January 13, 2006 @ 1:59 pm
I hate to say it, but in my opinion the grammar is in fact correct. "Is" corresponds to "what," which in this case functions as a collective but singular noun. Just think: a singular noun such as "the sports section" could be substituted for "reviews." It looks weird because the plural "reviews" immediately follows the singular "is," but they aren't actually a subject-verb pair.
stinkbug said on February 8, 2006 @ 9:33 am
Oooh...snap!
Allison said on February 10, 2006 @ 12:11 am
I would agree with you stinkbug if they were referring to a section like "Reviews" or "News" but then the second sentence ("Some of them are") would not make sense. If "reviews" is plural the first sentence is wrong, and if "reviews" is singular the second sentence is wrong. Snap back!
Nick Baker said on February 10, 2006 @ 3:18 pm
(I was kidding.) Actually, you should be so proud to have such intelligent readers. I guess I do too, but there are only 5 of them anyway. Sigh.
Allison said on February 11, 2006 @ 11:32 am
