So I was quoted in “this Washington Post story”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/15/AR2010101503575.html about the large proportion of people with social science degrees in the Washington DC area. Speaking about another well-represented group, liberal arts majors, I said:
bq. “There’s museums, there’s art galleries, there’s music performances,” said John Sides, an assistant professor at George Washington University and one of 52,000 Washingtonians with social science degrees. “There’s just a lot of opportunities you’re going to have in these cities that you’re not going to have anywhere else.”
See the problem(s)? Someone did. I received this email:
bq. Dear Dr. Sides,
bq. I came across your quotes at the close of Daniel de Vise’s article on educational levels of the local population in today’s on-line edition of The Washington Post. I was dismayed to see that your remarks were ungrammatical – very difficult to justify for an academic at an institution of higher learning.
bq. For the record, you used a singular verb with a plural predicate not just once, but four times. And only two sentences were in your quote! The verb was “is”, used with: “museums”, art galleries”, music performances”, and “opportunities”. The correct verb in each case should have been “are.”
bq. As a former adjunct faculty member at GWU for twenty-five years, it pains me to see the University represented in this way. One can only hope that your statement was an absent-minded slip of the tongue.
bq. Sincerely,
bq. [name redacted}
I replied:
bq. Dear Mr. [name],
bq. It were not a slip of the tongue, I’m afraid.
bq. Only joking! Daniel de Vise and I had a wide-ranging conversation over about 20 minutes. I was sharing lots of off-the-cuff observations with him and wasn’t really trying to craft every single remark for the public domain.
bq. Rest assured, I usually conjugates verbs correctly.
bq. Yours,
bq. John