“Correct” but Bad

Here’s an example of writing that’s grammatical and factual, but poorly written:

The United States is currently the world’s largest contributor to the problem, after China.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/04/energy-202-us-just-left-paris-climate-accord-even-presidential-race-is-undecided/

The sentence is a ways down, right after a picture of someone in front of a big TV screen.

Why is it a bad sentence?

• The sentence makes you switch gears halfway through the sentence. The US isn’t the world’s largest, it’s the second largest. That information should come earlier in the sentence:

The United States is currently the world’s second largest contributor to the problem, after China.

Try not to make your readers switch gears. Unless you want to confuse them.

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The singular is “datum.”

I mentioned this point about the word data before; I’m repeating because the article is worth reading. It’s about a treatment for drug addiction, called contingency management, that appears to be rather effective. Here’s the goof:

Early data suggests that overdoses have increased even more during the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced most treatment programs to move online.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/health/meth-addiction-treatment.html

Note the singular verb.

Sorry, I don’t have a good drug addiction picture.

Read the caption:

They should both be “you’re”! They both mean “you are.”

Harrumpf!

Okay, “bacterium” is the word for a single bacterial cell. “Bacteria” is the general term for a bunch of those cells, especially if you’re referring to one species, but the word can apply to more than one species, too.

But what if you’re referring to more than one individual cell of bacteria? Here are a couple sentences that made me wonder:

There’s a Reason Why Bacterias Can’t Be Fat or Skinny
Bacterias are seemingly the same size wherever you go. While there are exceptions that vary in size from 1 to 10 micrometers (µm), most bacterias fall somewhere between 0.5 to 2 µm.

https://interestingengineering.com/theres-a-reason-why-bacterias-cant-be-fat-or-skinny

My spell checker even flagged it.

I suppose it’s correct. Maybe “bacteriums.” What do you think?

Take a look at this sentence:

As forecasters predicted, the storm has weakened slightly before making landfall, as it meets cooler waters and less favorable wind conditions near the Louisiana coast.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/09/922148939/hurricane-deltas-winds-hit-120-mph-as-storm-approaches-louisiana-coast

So the sentence starts with the simple past, switches to present perfect, and concludes with the present. This is not good writing.

Generally speaking, pick a tense and stick with it. Re-read the sentence using the simple past each time. Now the sentence is better, isn’t it?