He Did WHAT!? WHERE!?

or, Ya Wanna Say That Again More Slowly?

I just heard a radio news announcer deliver a classic goof.  All you English teachers put this one in your file of outrageous examples — it doesn’t get any better than this.

To announce that they would be updating the story of a cause celebre in my area, the announcer said, “A former daycare employee accused of molesting children in court today.”

Now that you’ve recovered from your double-take, are you wondering where in heck the judge was, to let the guy do stuff like that in his courtroom?

The problem, of course, is the missing VERB. Rule number one in English grammar: To be a sentence, the string of words MUST contain a noun and a verb that related to each other. “Accused” is NOT the main verb in the announcer’s sentence; it’s part of a clause that describes which former daycare employee we are discussing, and it, therefore, acts as an adjective. (Had the clause been fully stated, that part of the sentence would read “A former daycare employee who is accused of molesting children….” )

Now we get to the sticky part. Had the reporter merely inserted the word “was” or “appeared” between the words “children” and “in,” everything would have been fine. That’s all the sentence needed. Instead, the reporter dropped the verb, and the result is an outstanding example of why you should not ellipsize your speech.

I see this in many of the papers that I review for college and high school students, and even in some of the professional editing jobs that I take on. While there is much to be said for “writing like you speak” (which ought to be “writing as you speak,” but that’s another topic), you may find yourself in trouble if your speech is not grammatically sound. Which most people’s speech is not. So watch those modifiers and verbs, so you don’t have really bizarre things going on in even more bizarre places.

Tags: public speaking, usage