Correction: For the Record
Due to inexplicable logic among style enforcers at the Times, a teaser on the front page of today’s Metro section—“A couple are arrested for leaving three children alone in a car in SoHo”—is incorrect. It should read: “Some couple are arrested.”
posted by DO at 10:37 AM
6 Comments:
Garner sez that there's no graceful fix (when one thing connected to couple, like the article, is singular, and the verb is plural (he advocates the plural verb most of the time). He goes on to say: rewrite it.
Which I guess you did. :-)
And what justification does he give for attaching a plural preposition to a singular subject?
He doesn't have to. Language isn't logical.
Actually, I'm sure he does have one, it's just the book is three flights down ...
Well, the statement "language isn't logical" is itself an illogical statement, so we're stuck in one of those loops. It's enough to render me speechless, but I'm fighting back with all my might. Of course language is logical!
Language is human.
Humans aren't logical.
Therefore, language isn't logical.
Oh, how it makes me laugh to put this in syllogism form ...
Excuse me, but doesn't the word logic itself derive from logos?
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