A Topical Application to Help Soothe the World's Grammar Maladies

              I learned that I've been saying and writing a specific word incorrectly for my entire life. On pg. 197 I discovered that the most common usage of the word “Hopefully” was actually grammatically incorrect. I was slightly shocked to discover that my incorrect usage was a dangling modifier. In all honesty that habit might be hard to break, and I seriously doubt I'll be able to completely eliminate it from my speech.

            “Politics” is one of many tricky words ending with an s, and I've always improvised without worrying too much about conjugation when using it. Of course, the explanation seemed glaringly obvious once I read it. There are a lot of ostensibly plural words that are actually singular grammatically speaking.

            The proper use of “were” and “was”  is another little grammar nuance that's given me trouble for years. I wasn't aware that the distinction revolves around possibility or a lack thereof. It's always worth a second look at the rules when using something as odd as a plural verb with a singular subject, similar to “politics” and a few similar words.

            Using “their” to show possession by a singular person of indeterminate gender is a very common mistake; honestly the proper alternative (“his or her”) still feels a bit clunky, but of course knowledge of the actual rules is more important than my intuitive sense when composing more technical pieces of writing.

            Here is an obvious failure in editing. It's quite apparent that somebody initially wrote the headline with proper verb-subject agreement then edited it without updating the conjugation. It should be “Members of Utah Task Force One are. . .” and while the mistake is fairly understandable it seems more glaring when one considers that it's a professional news organization that published it.