As Barack Obama and John McCain assessed the nation’s many problems in last night’s debate, they committed many linguistic mistakes. Perhaps a delayed debate would’ve been beneficial, had it afforded them time to brush up on The Elements of Style. Then they would’ve been armed with solid grammar, along with twin bracelets from the mothers of deceased soldiers.

The most common problem was noun-pronoun disagreement. For example, the best-selling memoirist Obama said, “No U.S. soldier ever dies in vain because they are carrying out the missions of their Commander-In-Chief.”

It’s worrisome to think our potential Budgeter-In-Chief could lose track of a number over the course of a single sentence. Obama started with one “soldier,” and six words later, he slipped into “they.” This happened again and again. For example, he said the “biggest threat to the United States is a terrorist getting their hands on nuclear weapons.” Here, the singular flipped to the plural pronoun “their” in two short words. Imagine how much harder it’d be to keep track of the national budget!

McCain’s recall was no stronger. He showed signs of early Alzheimer’s on several occasions. Repetition may be a generally effective debate strategy, but it’s a bad idea if you’re 72. For instance, McCain described the receipt of his cherished bracelet:

This was last August, a year ago. And I said, ‘I will – I will wear his bracelet with honor.’ And this was August, a year ago.

He demonstrated dementia again when talking about military veterans.

I know the veterans. I know them well. And I know that they know that I’ll take care of them. And I’ve been proud of their support and their recognition of my service to the veterans. And I love them. And I’ll take care of them. And they know that I’ll take care of them.

If McCain catered this remark to veterans, it does not convey a favorable perception of their intelligence, does it? Then again, he never won Miss Congeniality. He pointed that out last night – twice.

Describing people with that rather than who certainly isn’t congenial. We use who for people and named pets and that for unnamed animals and objects. But McCain is a maverick. He said, “I’m happy to say that I’ve got a partner that’s a good maverick along with me now.” Based on Palin’s word choices in the few interview she’s done, that appears to be true.

Not Miss Congeniality also made redundant statements, calling his memory into deeper question. “I want to make sure we’re not handing the health care system over to the federal government, which is basically what would ultimately happen with Senator Obama’s health care plan,” he said. Basically, ultimately. Probably, likely, eventually. Oh, dear!

The prepositional phrase McCain used to plug a certain website also made him sound painfully old. “I suggest that people go up on the website of Citizens Against Government Waste, and they’ll look at those projects,” he said. Just go up on it; mount that keyboard!