The president-elect’s new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, may have faced the nation yesterday, but he didn’t have much information to share with the nation. And yet, despite all the question dodging, Emanuel still managed to make a grammatical mistake — in his very first response.

“But you should know, one cautionary note, in past times there hasn’t been announcements till December.”

With multiple announcements per president and multiple presidents, this calls for a plural verb, haven’t been.

The chief of staff made a similar mistake last week in an interview with George Stephanopoulos. Emanuel said, “When the campaign is over, the work of solving the problems of the country begin.”

When you’re using a prepositional phrase, such as “the work of solving the problems of the country,” the word that precedes the preposition dictates the verb. The remainder of the phrase can be ignored. In this case, of is the preposition, so work determines the verb — not problems, which appears to have influenced Emanuel’s verb choice.

We know Emanuel is busy, but we hope he takes time to brush up on grammar before Jan. 20.