” ‘The racism and deadly violence in Charlottesville is unacceptable but there is a better way to remove these monuments,’ Gov. Roy Cooper (D) said via Twitter on Monday evening.”

— “Protestors in North Carolina topple Confederate statue following Charlottesville violence,” The Washington Post, August 15, 2017

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Does anyone know (let alone care) that a plural subject takes a plural verb? This grammar rule is violated routinely — all the time. Not only by public speakers and journalists — both in speaking and in print — but also, incredibly, it is routinely violated by academics.

When you come to think about it, this is not all that surprising. After all, grammar isn’t taught in elementary schools any more; this has been the case since around 1970. It was considered too old fashioned, something prim schoolmarms used to fuss over.

I am very thankful that I had such teachers. They taught such things as sentence structure, the parts of speech, and the difference between a subject and an object. Heaven forbid, they even had us diagramming sentences!

— Roger W. Smith

   August 2017