Antecedents Matter

Let’s start with some rules

• An antecedent is a word toward the front of a sentence that a word farther along in the sentence (called the proform) refers to.
• Antecedents and proforms have to agree, which means they have the same grammatical form (both have to be singular or both plural, for example.)
• “Who” refers to people, “that” refers to non-people

Here are two examples, both from this article:

This news organization sat down with Crandall at Attivo’s headquarters to discuss the company’s work for customers, which include consumer-goods companies, tech firms, law offices, and government agencies.

Okay, is it the comany’s work or the company’s customers that’s included? It’s the customers! Even besides the list making sense as a list of customers, both “customers” and the proform, “include” are plural. So the grammar tells you, too.

There is this very advanced set of attackers that will use all sorts of social engineering to figure out how to get around the security systems.

“That” goes with non-humans, right? And attackers are human, right? So it should be “who will use etc.” right? But “set” is a math term, right? Non-human, right? Well… the context indicates that this is a set of humans, so I think “who” is still appropriate. (And “will use” can be either singular or plural, so that’s no help.) But that’s the editor in me.

What does the editor in you say?

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It’s in the first panel of this Mr. Fitz, which has a student speaking, whom I wouldn’t be surprised to see making this mistake. It’s easy to make. Do you see it? (It’s not the extra “a” in the second sentence; that’s just a typo.)

Hint: The mistake has to do with agreement.

Okay, I won’t go into all the details about the full construction of this sentence, but “us” and “an adult” are equivalent. Hence, they should agree in number, meaning both singular or both plural, not one of each.

He should have said, “…teaching us to be adults” or “teaching me to be an adult.”

See how the agreement makes the sentence a little smoother?

Go thou and do likewise.

PS—Since I started with a test, I’ll end with one. It also has to do with agreement. Here’s a sentence from an email my wife sent me:

It’s nice to know that someone else besides you &  Dave knows how busy I actually am.

Okay, should “knows” stay singular or be changed to plural?

Not much of a lesson today, but slightly autobiographical.

I think, and have thought so for years, that “-s” being the ending on a singular verb is a little incongruous (weird), since it’s also the usual ending on plural nouns. I frequently see people whose first language isn’t English get this wrong. Can’t say as I blame them.

Anyway, here’s the Andertoons comic that reminded me about this.

Remember, the original test is here. go take it if you haven’t already. What’s the fun of free answers?

1. So, the Rangers are based out of Igloolik.
2. So what does a potential new state of matter for the rest of us?
3.  Indiana law explicitly forbids government employees such as the Governor to conduct politics on state accounts, so it’s credible to argue Pence had no other options.
4. “The Church and State owes them all an apology,” she said.
5. It stands in stark contrast with a pair of current cartoons by fairly mainstream conservative cartoonists that mock Democrats for being obsessed with the Russian connections.

And the answers:

1. They are based in that place. Even based at works, but not out of! Maybe they venture out of Igloolik occasionally…
2. Okay, I usually don’t bother with simple carelessness, but these are professionals! What does a potential new state of matter mean for the rest of us?
3. The reference to the governor is an aside (aka non-restrictive) so it should have commas before and after it. “…employees, such as the governor, to conduct…” but that’s not the main goof! Do you forbid someone to do something, or forbid them from doing it? You could also throw a “that” in front of Pence.
4. Ah, good old subject-verb agreement. You should all have gotten this one. “Church and state” is a plural, so you want the plural verb, “owe.”
5. Cartoonists are people, people. So it’s cartoonists who mock Democrats. “Who” is for people, “that” is for non-people.

The genius of Dan Piraro’s Bizarro strikes again. I hardly know what to say, except that I’ve written about every topic mentioned on the cover. Except the lips.

Lessee… Participles (sort of), Adjectives (several; here’s one), adverbs (also several), S-V agreement (at least twice), pronouns (also more than once).

Well, The Writing Rag site has been around since January of 2009 (!), and more than 400 posts (!!) whaddya expect?