Month: April 2008

“It crashed in … Australia killing one cow.”

Commas, Common English Blunders

I saw this yesterday on a History Channel program about Skylab.

Problem:
A comma is missing.

Explanation:
The television program was about Skylab.

As the program went to a commercial break, a multi-sentence blurb appeared on the screen, and the narrator read the blurb about Skylab.

One of the sentences was “It crashed in a remote area of Western Australia killing one cow.”

The narrator was smart enough to pause after he said “Australia”; otherwise, the sentence would have sounded odd.

Commas tell readers where to put pauses when speaking a sentence.

“It crashed in a remote area of Western Australia” is a complete sentence on its own, and “killing one cow” is an aside that adds information, so “Australia” should be immediately followed by a comma.

Look at these two sentences:

  1. Jim hit the man running from the police.
  2. Jim hit the man, running from the police.

Sentence #1 means that Jim hit the man who was running from the police. In contrast, sentence #2 means that Jim hit the man while Jim was running from the police. See what a difference a comma makes?

Solution:
“It crashed in … Australia, killing one cow.”

“Skype — social networking at it’s best”

Apostrophes, Common English Blunders, Contractions, Possessives, Pronouns

I got this in an email message from Skype a couple of days ago.

Problem:
A contraction-forming apostrophe appears where it should not.

Explanation:
The word “it’s” is a contraction of “it is”; the apostrophe signifies the dropping of a letter (the “i” in “is”).

The required word is “its” (not “it’s”) because “its” is the possessive form of “it” (which refers to “Skype”).

Confusing “it’s” and “its” is a common English blunder.

A simple way to remember that “its” is the possessive form of “it” — a third-person pronoun — is to recognize that “his” is the possessive form of “he” — another third-person pronoun — and that neither “his” nor “its” has a possessive apostrophe.

Solution:
“Skype — social networking at its best”

“There were a number of updates.”

Common English Blunders, Number, Verbs

I heard this during a conference call.

Problem:
The number of the verb does not match the number of “a number of updates”.

Explanation:
The phrase “a number of updates” is singular (because “a number” is singular).

In contrast, the “were” form of the verb “be” is third-person plural.

The solution is to use the third-person singular form of the verb “be”.

I believe that the problematic sentence is an example of speakers and writers being distracted by the noun “updates”, which is plural and ends the sentence (and therefore tends to get more attention than does “a number”).

Solution:
“There was a number of updates.”