The Grammar Logs
#595

In this sentence taken from a recent column, William F. Buckley uses the plural form of the verb in the first clause, and then refers to the FDA as "it." Surely, if the FDA ARE complaining, then THEY ARE worried that foreign-shipped drugs may be counterfeits, no? Personally, I think it seems more logical to assume that the FDA—as a collective—IS complaining, and accordingly, IT IS worried, etc. Your thoughts, please.

"Who are complaining are the FDA, which says it is worried that foreign-shipped drugs may be counterfeits, or may be impure, and therefore dangerous to health; U.S. pharmacies, who stand to lose business from the competition; and fussy prosecutors who say the law is the law and people are stepping on it all over." (William F. Buckley, March 16, 2004)

I was so excited: I thought you had caught Buckley in a grammatical solecism! But the subject of that first verb, "are," is really the FDA, U.S. pharmacies, and fussy prosecutors. He needs those semicolons to separate the three subjects (which contain internal commas). So I'm afraid his choice of verb is correct and our fun is ruined. But that final phrase — "and people are stepping on it all over" — is really weird, isn't it?

Which is correct of the two possibilities:

I'm going to rely upon Edith Wharton's poem, "Ogrin the Hermit," here, where we find the lines:

Upon each others' hearts
They shall surprise the heart-beat of the world,
And feel a sense of life in things inert …

Here's another example (from H.G. Wells) that I've stolen from the online Atlantic:

Nobody, it may be said, proposes that Paris and Berlin should in future settle their disputes, like Rome and Alba Longa, by selecting three champions apiece and setting them to cut each others' throats.

Apparently the logical need for the plural "hearts" overcomes the singular sense of "each." The word "other" can be either singular or pluralized, and here the plural possessive form is preceded by the determiner "each."

Bryan Garner insists that the proper possessive form is "each other's," but then adds that when the phrase is followed by a plural, the apostrophe sometimes drifts to the right of the "s" as if magnetized by the plural object.

From Garner's Modern American Usageby Bryan Garner. Copyright 2003 by Bryan A. Garner. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., www.oup-usa.org, and used with the gracious consent of Oxford University Press.

What is the proper past tense of "quit"? I looked it up in the dictionary and i saw quitted, but that doesn't sound right? Are quitted and quit both proper uses of past tense?

Normally, when we use the past tense of "quit" to mean "stopped," it is spelled that way, as in "He quit bugging his sister." But if you mean "left," the past tense form "quitted" would be acceptable, at least in England: "Her finances dried up and she quitted the area, moving to Montana." In the U.S., you'd undoubtedly be better off using "left."

From Garner's Modern American Usageby Bryan Garner. Copyright 2003 by Bryan A. Garner. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., www.oup-usa.org, and used with the gracious consent of Oxford University Press.

Is it proper to write

The phrase "a great deal of" causes us to mentally congeal the twin notions of "time" and money" and we are not thinking of them as discrete entities. I would use the singular "has." Without the "great deal of," the two subjects can exist separately, and we would use the plural: "Time and money have been spent on this project …"

Is there a rule to determine the use of "not aware" vs "unaware". How are they different? Thanks for your help in solving this barn burner of an office discussion.

In most contexts, I doubt if there's any difference. However, "unaware" can carry connotations of being not just less than aware but also of being imperceptive, reckless, and even ignorant. It is, therefore, or can be, considerably more negative that "not aware of."

Authority for this note: Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Fifth Edition. Oxford University Press, New York. 2002.

Please help me with this sentence -- I am a national park superintendent who is trying to establish a non-profit group to support several national parks in the northern midwest. We've drafted a mission statement but it doesn't flow well, as I don' think the commas, "of"s, and "to"s work well together.

Our draft is:
The mission of the National Parks of Lake Superior Fund is to support the stewardship of the natural and cultural heritage, and enrich the experience of visitors to Lake Superior's national parks.

We want to support stewardship AND enhance visitor experiences, but these are not independent things — both are related to Lake Superior national parks.

One alternative I'm considering is:
The mission of the National Parks of Lake Superior Fund is to support the stewardship of the natural and cultural heritage of Lake Superior's national parks and to enrich the experience of those who visit these special places.

Your rewrite is a definite improvement: you need the parallel form and rhythms of "to support" and "to enrich." Something in the nature of mission statements and vision statements seems to generate windy and gaseous sentences. I could wish for better word than "special,." Maybe "unique"? And if we can find some way to convert "those who visit" to "visitors," that might also be helfpul.

Is "engaged in" a phrasal verb or does "in" begin the prepositional phrase? I am trying to determine, in the following sentence, whether the adjective "pattern or serious incident of" applies only to the first direct object or to both. I'd appreciate any guidance. Here is the sentence:

Did he engage in a pattern or serious incident of battery, defined as hitting, or domestic abuse, defined as threatening.

There are too many conjunctions and prepositions, and the commas don't help!

"In a pattern of serious incident" is a prepositional phrase, but it really should read "in a pattern OF or serious incident OF battery." We can use a suspended preposition like that: the first of waits for the common object, "battery" (actually, that, too has a dual object: "battery" and "domestic abuse." You're right about the commas. The definitions of "battery" and "abuse" should probably have been tucked into parentheses, both of them.

Did he engage in a pattern of or serious incident of battery (defined as hitting) or domestic abuse (defined as threatening)?

William Safire's latest column (3/21/04) contained the following sentence:

"Congress, more hawkish than President Bush on this state sponsor of terror, passed the Syria Accountability Act four months ago with large majorities; this week, he is expected to put some of its authorized economic squeeze on Bashar."

This question reminds me of last year's fuss over a sentence in the PSAT:

Toni Morrison's genius enables her to create novels that arise from and express the injustices African Americans have endured.

Is " to better" a verb? I think it is not but I still see it used very often as a transitive verb meaning "to improve". Is that correct? (Example, "three ways to better your grades"; "better your chances of winning a million dollars"; etc.). Thanks

My dictionaries seem to allow for that usage without comment, and none of my usage manuals say anything about it. There are all kinds of idiomatic uses of that word, and a verb meaning "to improve," as in "an attempt to better the aesthetics of urban spaces," seems to be one of them.

Is this sentence as unclear to you as it is to me? It is in a weather forecast.

Sunday may be cooler over all, but mostly due to a colder start compared to Saturday.

I say this is unclear and should not be in any newspaper, but another editor disagrees with me.

I agree with you. There are three different comparisons at work in that sentence, and I'm not even counting "mostly." By the time the reader has figured it out, the point of it is completely irrelevant, because it's Monday. I think it means that Sunday will get off to a much colder start than Saturday, so Sunday will seem to be [or will be, in fact], over all, a cooler day. The writer is trying to jam too much into one sentence.

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