singular-plural disagreement, word choice, redundancy

When Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson sat down with Tom Brokaw this morning on Meet the Press, he proved that his many financial woes are matched by linguistic ones.

“Borrowers have done things that were irresponsible also,” Paulson said. “But there’s a lot of, a lot of mistakes made.”

This is a case of contractions tripping up grammar. Contractions are two words merged or contracted into one. The apostrophe signals the missing letter or letters. Will not becomes won’t. Has not becomes hasn’t. And so on. When we use a contraction, we must be mindful of the verb it contains, and whether or not it fits the rest of the sentence.

Paulson erred when said, “There’s a lot of, a lot of mistakes made.” There’s stands for there is. But with multiple mistakes, plural, he should’ve said, “There were a lot of mistakes made.” (A telling use of passive voice. Notice how the incriminating noun “mistakes” so often induces passive voice? Speaking of the Iraqi war, Gov. Palin told Charlie Gibson, “There have been mistakes made.” And, of course, Bush famously told a televised audience that “mistakes have been made” in waging the war.

Paulson made a number of redundant statements this morning. He called the historic bailout a “very necessary” measure. By definition, necessary means “absolutely needed.” There is no need - or room - to intensify the word with an adverb like “very.” It’s already at the max, absolutely needed. The same goes for Steve Kroft’s phrase “totally engaged,” Cindy McCain’s RNC utterance “natural instinct,” and John McCain’s gem “advance warning.”

The Treasury Secretary also referred to a “patchwork regulatory system that’s outdated, outmoded.” Of course, outdated means outmoded.

Then there were a few poor word choices, the most atrocious being this remark: “What has gone on here is terrible, it’s unexcusable, and we need to deal with it.”

It’s inexcusable that Paulson needs such a dramatic linguistic bailout.