Why Can't We Agree?

A couple of days ago, I was reading a BBC news story when I came across the following passage:

And what's happened since the election?

The investigation remains closed but the debate about Mr Comey's actions rage on.

The anger felt by Clinton supporters were compounded when it emerged that the FBI had been looking into any links between the Trump campaign and Russia, but Mr Comey chose not to go public with it.

In May, he gave evidence to a Senate Judiciary Committee and defended himself.

He said that it was a "painful" dilemma when he decided to make his October pronouncement, but if he had not come forward about the new Clinton emails, he would have been guilty of concealment.

Mr Comey said he felt "nauseous" at the thought he might have had an impact.

I felt a little "nauseous" myself. Can you guess why? (If you're an English major, I'm sure you can. If not, I'll give you a hint: it has nothing to do with politics.)

I immediately fired off an e-mail to "the Beeb," the gist of which was:

I spotted a couple of glaring grammatical errors in your article. I have been hearing such errors more and more frequently on TV and radio, but to see two of them in writing (and from the BBC!) makes me despair for the future of the English language. You should be better than this.

Okay, that was pretty harsh, but BBC newswriters really should be better, as should anyone who writes for a living. Subject-verb agreement is pretty basic grammar—although I can see where a layperson might get lost when there are prepositional phrases involved. In such cases, it can help to diagram the sentence. For example, here's a diagram I found of the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence:

Don't worry. We're not going to do that, because I hate diagramming sentences. All you really need to do to ensure subject-verb agreement is to ask yourself three questions:

1. What is the verb in the sentence?,
2. What is the subject of that verb?, and
3. Do they agree?

Let's take a look at the first sentence in the passage:

The investigation remains closed but the debate about Mr Comey's actions rage on.

This is a compound sentence, with two clauses separated by the conjunction "but." Actually, it's a run-on sentence; there should be a comma before the "but," but I won't quibble about that now. See what I did there? In pointing out the missing comma, I gave you an example of a correctly punctuated compound sentence. Impressed? (Never mind; don't answer that.)

In the second clause of this compound sentence, the verb is obviously "rage." Now, we ask ourselves, what is the subject of that verb? What is it that is raging? Is it "Mr Comey's actions?" Well, let's try it:

Mr Comey's actions rage on.

Please! The only way that sentence could possibly make sense is if it were part of the dialogue from some far-fetched science fiction film:

First Scientist: "Mr. Comey's actions have taken on a life of their own! They are destroying the city!"

Second Scientist: "They cannot be stopped! Mr. Comey's actions rage on!"

Okay, maybe not so far-fetched, and I should seriously think about developing it into a screenplay, but the fact is, "Mr Comey's actions" is not the subject of the verb "rage," it is the object of the preposition "about." The phrase "about Mr Comey's actions" modifies the noun "debate." If we remove the phrase, we are left with the simple sentence:

The debate rage on.

Does that sound right to you? Of course not! That's because "debate" is a singular subject, and "rage" is a plural verb. They do not agree. Here's the corrected sentence (just for fun, we'll put that missing comma in—and what the heck, because we are a bit OCD, a period after "Mr" as well):

The investigation remains closed, but the debate about Mr. Comey's actions rages on.

Much better! See if you can find the second subject-verb error in the passage. If you didn't notice it before, it should be much easier now. After you've done this sort of analysis a few times, you should be able to spot such errors immediately. If only politics were that simple.

Oh, and by the way, Mr. Comey, the word is nauseated.

(Note: Before publishing this post, I took another look at the story and found that both errors had been fixed. Bravo, BBC!)

The problem is is...

I suppose all English majors have their grammatical pet peeves. Mine is the double copula. (No, it's not something dirty. Look it up.) The situation is is that this monstrosity has been steadily creeping into conversational English over the last twenty years or so. And the problem is is that lately, much to my horror, I have been hearing it more and more frequently in scripted dialogue. (I hear it all the time in one of my favorite programs, Community, which—aside from that damnable double "is"—is one of the best-written sitcoms on television.) And the thing is is that it makes me want to scream—

Because the fact is is that that extra "is" is not only unnecessary, it's ungrammatical!

There. I'm glad I got that off my chest. Now, before someone accuses me of being a "Grammar Nazi" (How I hate that term! Should someone who encourages correct usage really be equated with the Third Reich?), let me point out that I am not someone who goes around correcting people's grammar willy-nilly—in casual conversation, e-mails, Facebook posts, etc. My complaint is with professional writers. They should know better. Also, I admit that the double copula is a relatively minor offense. I have heard worse.

For example, recently I was watching the movie X-Men: First Class on television. It's an entertaining movie, and I was enjoying it—at least until I heard the following line: "Between you and I, I'm more fun." That line was like fingernails on a blackboard to me. Suddenly I was no longer paying attention to the movie. All I could think about was the writer's mistake. "But maybe it wasn't the writer's mistake," I thought, and I began to make excuses for him: "Maybe it was intentional; maybe he meant for the character to sound ignorant. Or more likely the actor butchered the line. It's a well-known fact that most actors can barely read." By this time, I had missed a good deal of the plot and nearly lost interest in the movie.

Historically, the English have tended to be better grammarians than we. However, lately such errors have been creeping into their writing, as well. In a recent episode of the (usually) brilliantly-written BBC series Sherlock, I cringed when Benedict Cumberbatch delivered the line, “Did you know there were other people after her, Mycroft, before you sent John and I in there?" Surely the brilliant Sherlock Holmes would know when to use the objective "me" rather than the subjective "I." This is elementary stuff—even Watson should be able to grasp it. Unfortunately, apparently the writer couldn't.

What makes all of this doubly frustrating is that these are talented people. They create ingenious plots and fascinating characters. But it takes more than talent to be a good writer. It takes skill. You may have a brilliant idea for designing a house, but unless you know the fundamentals of construction, you are not an architect. In the same way, unless you know the fundamentals of English composition, you aren't really a writer—or at least you shouldn't be one.

"This is just nitpicking," I hear you say. "Most people don't know the difference between a subject and an object."

But my point is that, of all people, the writer should know the difference.

"Maybe so," you reply, "But aren't writers just writing the way people talk?"

People talk the way they do, in part, because of the way they hear people talk in movies and on television. If our writers continue to write badly, our children will learn to talk—and write—badly. And their children will talk and write even more worser. And their children...

Now do you see what the problem is is?