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 [...]

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Just as he’s struggling to get legislators to agree with the authors of the $700 billion bailout package, President Bush had a difficult time getting his subjects and objects to agree in last night’s national address.
He began by saying, “Over the past few weeks, many Americans have felt anxiety about their finances and their future. [...]

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redundancy, who vs. that, who vs. whom, subject-verb agreement

When Sen. John McCain talked with Katie Couric about Congress’ $700 billion bailout package yesterday, he seemed determined to stress the gravity of the situation.
“The financial crisis is on the verge of a very, very serious, most serious crisis since the end of World War II,” he [...]

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singular-plural disagreement, redundancy

Tom Brokaw made multiple linguistic mistakes on this morning’s Meet the Press. His opening statement was problematic. He said, “Our issues this Sunday: the American financial system in deep crisis.”
Many of us dramatize speech. We want people to listen closely. We want to sound as intense as possible. And, to be sure, this [...]

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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 [...]

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