Find the Error 43
(Extract adapted from a lavish promotional booklet
produced by a national campaign group)
What kind of mistake do you see? (Choose one:)
- apostrophes
- articles
- doesn't make sense
- punctuation
- singular / plural
- spelling
Answer: punctuation
The problem with punctuation in this example comes in the title: 'What the
Heritage Committee is doing about it?' If you take away the question mark at
the end, this sentence is fine. After reading this title you would expect to be
able to read all about what the heritage committee is doing about 'it' –
whatever 'it' is. But if the author intended to ask a question, this sentence is
incorrect because it doesn't use a question form. To make a question form
you would need to invert the verb ('to be'), which means putting it before the
subject of the sentence ('the Heritage Committee') rather than after. So the
title could read either: 'What the Heritage Committee is doing about it'
(without the question mark) or 'What is the Heritage Committee doing about
it?' (with the question mark) – depending on what the author wanted to write
in the article that follows.
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