Friday Follies #240 – Making Grammar Great Again, One Hyphen at a Time

Come and enjoy the Grammar Cop’s spread today: verbs, verbs, and – yes, verbs! 😄

In this election cycle, the blending waivers and blending credits have plagued President Donald Trump, who, like others before him, have been caught between angering the oil lobby or angering the corn lobby—with neither serving as an attractive option.
Overall, conservative media has used the custody case to not only bash transgender people … but to demonize a mother and small child.
Mulcair’s words were responded by former Bloc Québecois MP and former Longueuil Mayor Caroline St-Hilaire: “You’re already unable to…”

And the corrections:

In this example (and the next one), there is a problem with subject-verb agreement. Would you agree that a singular subject needs a verb with a singular ending, and that a plural subject needs a verb with a plural ending? You would? Good, then we have lots of “agreement” here! 😃 “President Donald Trump” is the subject of the clause that starts with “who.” (Forget about “like others before him,” which is just a phrase describing Trump but is not the subject of this clause.) The subject is Trump, and the verb that goes with his name should be has been caught, not “have been caught.”
Altogether now, class: MEDIA is PLURAL. The singular is MEDIUM. (Remember the great ’60s philosopher and English professor, Marshall McLuhan and the expression he coined, The Medium is the Message? That phrase became a classic.) So, the sentence should start: Overall, conservative media have used the custody case to not only bash transgender people …
When you read this sentence aloud, don’t you notice something missing? “Were responded by” is missing a “to”: Mulcair’s words were responded to by… The problem now is that it sounds clunky. The to and the by right next to each other seem wrong. The sentence could be rewritten like this: Former Bloc Québecois MP and former Longueuil Mayor Caroline St-Hilaire responded to Mulcair: “You’re already unable to…”