Here’s a sentence featuring some of the classic pitfalls. Choose from one of the five answers below to complete it correctly.
The Chancellor admitted that interest rates, as well as inflation, has been struggling to be kept under control for some months now, with the result that portfolio managers were investing a large proportion of their funds abroad.
A: admitted that interest rates, as well as inflation, they have been struggling to be kept under control
B: admitted that interest rates, as well as inflation, have been struggling to be kept under control
C: admitted that interest rates, as well as inflation, had been struggling to be kept under control
D: admitted that he had been struggling to keep interest rates and inflation under control
E: admitted that interest rates, as well as inflation, has been struggling to be kept under control
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Singular and plural verbs
Consider the underlined section in the original sentence. The first thing to notice is that the phrase between the commas, ‘as well as inflation’, can safely be ignored in terms of the structure of the sentence. (You can do the same thing with the previous sentence.) We are left with the following:
admitted that interest rates has been struggling to be kept under control
Now, the noun phrase ‘interest rates’ requires a plural verb. ‘Has’ is singular. Therefore answer E, in which no changes have been made, is incorrect. (It is often answer A which contains no changes, but it’s as well to check.)
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A pronoun, it replaces a noun
Some people say things like the above. Often they are speakers of languages in which pronouns can follow nouns without replacing them, for example ‘Le singe, il est dans l’arbre’. This is correct French, if conversational; ‘Le singe est dans l’arbre’ is the correct formal way to describe the monkey’s whereabouts. But in English we don’t have that option. A pronoun replaces a noun. What does a pronoun do? It replaces a noun.
Consider answer A. Remove the phrase ‘as well as inflation’. What remains is the following:
admitted that interest rates they have been struggling to be kept under control
Saying ‘interest rates they have’ won’t work. Answer A is incorrect.
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Sequence of tenses
Imagine a summary of the issues discussed in Match of the Day:
Lawrenson claimed that Bent had had a great couple of seasons and was a bargain at £24m. Hansen says that Bent has only taken advantage of poor defending and isn’t worth half that much.
The pundits disagree, but each has expressed himself correctly. Lawrenson uses the pluperfect (‘had had’) followed by the past (‘was a bargain’). Hansen prefers the perfect form of the past tense (‘has only taken advantage’) followed by the present (‘isn’t worth half that much’).
Note that our observers could have used the continuous forms of the relevant tenses had they so wished:
Lawrenson claimed that Bent had been having a great couple of seasons and was a bargain at £24m. Hansen says that Bent has only been taking advantage of poor defending and isn’t worth half that much.
What we cannot do is ignore the rules about sequence of tenses:
Lawrenson claimed that Bent had had a great couple of seasons and is a bargain at £24m. Hansen says that Bent has only taken advantage of poor defending and wasn’t worth half that much.
To summarise, the sequences we use are as follows:
PLUPERFECT ——> PAST
or PERFECT ——> PRESENT
where the first tense is at one remove from the second.
We do not use PLUPERFECT ————————————> PRESENT (too far apart) or PERFECT -> PAST (no distance).
Looking at our original sentence, the phrase ‘portfolio managers were investing’ uses the past tense, so we need a pluperfect tense in the phrase preceding it. Therefore Answer B is incorrect.
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The beauty of language
We can express ourselves beautifully and succinctly in English. Equally we can make a real mess of achieving the kind of clarity which is said to be one of the things you should be looking for if it’s important to you to get your point across so everyone understands it. See what I mean?
Answer C is clumsy. Interest rates don’t struggle. The use of the passive is unnecessary. (It’s often used by politicians to abnegate responsibility, but that’s another story.) Aside from the argument that the Chancellor might be loathe to admit struggling to do anything, and the fact that he is not the only one with any influence over interest rates, Answer D is by far the most fluent. It may not have been strictly true since the day the Bank of England took charge of setting interest rates, but we won’t worry about that now.
After all that, Answer D is correct.
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Practice
Look for answers on practice questions that contain a singular subject with a plural verb or vice versa. There’s often one.
When reading (and you can try this with the passages in the Reading Comprehension questions), look for phrases with commas at either end which can be taken out of a sentence without altering its basic meaning or structure. Doing so often helps us identify the part of the sentence that needs to be corrected.
Find sequences of tenses.
Rewrite anything that isn’t clear. The passive is to be avoided – so avoid the passive. Shorten and summarise where possible. Split one sentence into two; or use a semicolon to give a longer break than a comma. This might prove useful when it comes to writing those short essays that no one bothers about much. It will help you master effective written communication. And you will improve your understanding of texts.