Answer to the Quick Quiz of Yesterday; Using the Object Pronoun When He Should Have Used the Subject Pronoun

To make sense of this post, you need to first read the previous one, which asks you to identify an egregious grammatical error by a TV news reporter.

The blunder by Zeleny lies in his using the object pronoun “her” instead of the subject pronoun “she” when he utters the words “her and her husband” while referring to Gabby Giffords. In other words, the correct English would have been “she and her husband.”

As I said yesterday, I find it inconceivable that somebody who, until recently, was the national political correspondent for the prestigious New York Times could commit such a grave violation of the most basic grammar rules. It is tantamount to murdering the English language. If only we could prosecute reporters / correspondents of major publications and news channels for such crimes.

© Copyright 2013  V. J. Singal

Quick Quiz: Can You Identify the Egregious Grammatical Error in the Video Clip?

This is a really easy one, hence the target audience is those who are “grammatically challenged.”

In the 47-second video clip below, taken from the July 5 edition of “Washington Week in Review,” there is an egregious and unforgivable grammatical error uttered by ABC News Senior Washington Correspondent Jeff Zeleny, as he responds to host Gwen Ifill’s lament that gun control is not going anywhere despite all the “door-to-door campaigning by the weeping parents from Newtown.” Can you identify the blunder?  I say “unforgivable” because, until this past January, Zeleny was the national political correspondent for the prestigious New York Times!

[For readers from foreign countries: Gabby Giffords--whose name you’ll hear in Zeleny’s response--is the Congresswoman from Arizona who was shot in the head outside a supermarket in January 2011.]

Tune in to this blog tomorrow for the answer.

© Copyright 2013  V. J. Singal

Vocabulary Enhancement Words: New Edition of “Words of the Month”

The latest edition of “Words of the Month,” my free vocabulary enrichment feature, has been online since early this month. The six featured words, all of which lie within the conversational vocabulary of America’s most articulate (as is the case with all of the words featured in my book, “The Articulate Professional-3^rd Edition”):

1. desultory

2. lassitude

3. paragon

4. inequity

5. ersatz

6. quixotic