On Monday of last week, I toted some books to my local post office. As I waited in line, I noticed a computer-printed sign taped onto the long table behind which customers waited. The sign read:
Put Tape on Your
Package’s Before
Talking to Clerk
I trust that you, my verbivorous reader, note the error in the message—the errant apostrophe in Package’s. Walking among us are folks who, whenever they spot an “s” at the end of a word feel obliged to install a squiggle right before it. I call such mistakes “prepostrophes.”
So, after I mailed my books with one of the customer service reps, I went across the room to speak with the supervisor. I explained to him that the apostrophe in the message reflected poorly on the Postal Service and could be easily corrected.
At that point, a nearby CSR shouted at me, “I wrote that message and I stand by it! This is not an English class!” I replied that a lot of people make that error and that he could easily correct it and print new signs. But when I returned to that post office four days later, the same signs [sigh] were still taped in the same places.
There are those who contend, “Who cares how you say or write something, as long as people understand you">
So I still say, “Change that sign!”
DEAR RICHARD: I never thought in my 85th year that I would enjoy seeing words like antecedent and verbs of being, but it was a trip down memory lane for me to read in “Lederer on Language” your discourse on grammar. I suspect I was one of the last ones to be taught English grammar and diagramming sentences in ninth grade in San Diego Public Schools. Thank you for keeping our language alive. —Dedi Ridenour, Sunset Cliffs
For me, the study of grammar need not be an arcane, hermetically sealed exercise. When I taught English for almost three decades, my students and I explored the structure of English, from the parts of speech to phrases and clauses, applying our knowledge to usage, punctuation and sentence creation.
“Every self-respecting mechanic,” said John Dewey, “will call the parts of an automobile by their right names because that is the way to distinguish them.” Thus it is with the writer. If Alexander Pope is correct in asserting that “true ease in writing comes from art, not chance,” a naming of the grammatical parts will reduce the chance and enhance the art, even if those names are one day forgotten.
DEAR RICHARD: Is it possible that the person who wrote the headline for your July 24 column needs a language lesson? I’m a retired journalist, and that headline grabbed my attention in the wrong way. When I wrote headlines, it would have been: “A column of U-T readers is [not “are”] now a galley of groupies.” —Julie M. Walker, San Marcos
Truth be told, I write the headlines for my columns, and I stand by my choice of the plural verb are in my recent banner. As a rule of thumb, singular subjects take singular verbs, and plural subjects take plural verbs. But sometimes the noun that is closest to the verb can exert more influence than the noun that is the grammatical subject.
In the headline that I created, the subject, A column, is singular, but the plural readers, right before the verb, causes that verb to be cast as a plural, are.
DEAR RICHARD: “The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson. Sounds awkward. Shouldn’t the verb is be changed to are? —Claude Peltz, Windham, N.H.
Is is correct. The number of the verb depends on the subject, not the predicate (what comes after the verb). Perhaps the best-known example of this rule is “All I want for Christmas is [not are] my two front teeth.”
