Grammar errors (1) – eight grammar errors in 104 words

Grammar errors seem to be more frequent every year – even in England, once a bastion of good grammar.

Example

For example, a March 19 article in the Mail Online quoted a statement from Assistant Chief Constable Gary Beautridge of the Kent Police. In only 104 words, Mr. Beautridge made eight grammar errors – plus three (possibly four) logic errors and one minor usage error.

The statement, which responded to officers’ complaints that “annoying PC-related nonsense” was being “shoved down [their] throats,” said:

“It is important that Kent Police recognises and values fundamental human rights and provides services that meet the changing and diverse needs of Kent's communities, visitors and our workforce.

“One of our core values is that we will treat everyone with fairness, respect and dignity.

“As such we need to ensure officers and staff have an understanding and awareness of some of the faiths and ethnicities found in Kent so that they can engage more sensitively with, and have more confidence in, the various cultural and faith backgrounds.

“In doing so it will help provide the most appropriate and professional services to those people.” (Boldface added to highlight errors.)

My Analysis

Grammar Errors #1, #2 and #3: “It is important that” should be followed by the subjunctive. Therefore, “recognises” should be “recognise,” “values” should be “value,” and “provides” should be “provide.”

Grammar Error #4: The pronoun “our” makes the series “communities, visitors and our workforce” a nonparallel construction. “[O]ur workforce” should be “police force.”

Minor Usage Error #1: “[T]hat we will treat everyone” is awkward. Normally we state core values by using infinitives without “to” (“Treat everyone”) or gerunds (“Treating everyone”).

Grammar Error #5: “As such” should not be used as a synonym for “therefore,” as it is here. See this post for the proper use of “as such.”

Logic Error #1: Mr. Beautridge states that “One of our core values is that we will treat everyone with fairness, respect and dignity,” but later states that the police force is going to “ensure officers and staff have an understanding and awareness of [only] some of the faiths and ethnicities…” (Boldface added.)

Logic Errors #2 and #3: One can engage with people, but not with backgrounds. One can have confidence in people, but not in backgrounds

Grammar Errors #6 and #7: The expression “doing so” is supposed to refer to a previously mentioned verb. The pronoun “it” is supposed to refer to a singular noun. But the verb and noun referred to here are unclear.

Grammar Error #8: ‘[T]hose people” has no clear antecedent. Mr. Beautridge probably meant “faiths” or “ethnicities” or “cultural and faith backgrounds.” If so, he has made one more logic error.

The Takeaway: When readers see frequent grammar or logic errors (in this example, more than one error per ten words), they assume that the speaker or writer is ill-educated, stupid, or irresponsible. Like it or not, people judge us by our grammar; our only protection is to try to get it right.