I RECEIVED a most jocular email from a co-worker. The risibility it engendered was almost uncontrollable. However, the email had a serious and germane message for all professionals involved in the actual use of the English Language. Again, be warned: some of the things I am commenting on, may seem silly, but they can escape all of us, and that is why I truly advise a serious approach in any profession, where language skills are of paramount importance.
How about these for headlines:
“Man killed to death; Husband kills lover after committing suicide; Man Kills Self Before Shooting Wife and Daughter; Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers; Red tape Holds up New Bridge’s Opening; War Dims Hope for Peace”  – and Yes, these actually were in print!
I thought of possible rewrites, utilising just punctuations. The captions now are clearer, at least some of them.
Man killed to death (plain wrong); Husband kills lover after committing suicide (plain wrong); Man Kills Self Before Shooting Wife and Daughter (plain wrong); Police Begin Campaign to ‘Run Down’ Jaywalkers (metaphoric improvisation); ‘Red tape’ Holds up New Bridge’s Opening (metaphoric improvisation); War Dims; Hope for Peace (use of a semi colon).
Just over the week end too I read the following:
“The bulldozer is to be used to address issues of dam access and dam maintenance, a critical concern of rice farmers in the region (the writer, whether inadvertently or not, makes ‘issues’ a singular subject (‘a’ critical concern). It got a little worse too.
The same story read, that “Minister (?) told the farmers present at the handing over ceremony that the Ministry has been successful in addressing the issue of drainage and irrigation in the region, helped significantly in part by the six excavators it provided.”
I propose the word ‘cumbersome’ to describe this kind of writing. After, ‘busting’ my brain, I thought that maybe what the writer had in mind was that “Minister (?) told the farmers present at the handing over ceremony, that the Ministry has been successful in addressing the issues of drainage and irrigation in the region, and that this has been helped significantly in part by the six excavators it (has already) provided.” And still I am at a loss-the entire construction is confusing and needs simplification and clarification.
This same day, I did my usual news ‘round up’ and on BBC Sport, I read through “Roger Federer pulls out of Shanghai Masters.” This blunder caught my eyes: “The 16-times Grand Slam champion…” Wow! Even the once venerated BBC is allowing some slips. One writes “a five year old…”’ as against “a five years old…” So ‘Fed’ is really “a 16 time Grand Slam winner…” who has won Grand Slams  16 times , just like the “five year old boy” ( who is a boy), “who is five years old.”
I close with another ‘well practised’ and now very entrenched solecism. In reading “The Interest of Cricket Takes Precedence,” one sentence caught my attention. Here is the relevant part of it:
“…and this is one of the major reasons for us producing some of the greatest cricketers…”
I am wondering about “us producing.” I propose from a grammatical stand point, that it should be “our producing.” You see, it was “my reading” the few articles mentioned above that helped me spot a few common blunders and not “me reading” them.
Actually my email was titled: Proof Readers Needed.