Monday 27 December 2010

I Know it Doesn't Matter

I should overlook tiny things, but they annoy me. This passage from this weekend's Australian Financial Review is basically all right, I suppose:

except that it should ideally read as follows: "Among them were: that the scheme be budget-neutral; capable of delivering emissions reductions in line with climate science; be simple fair and flexible; and take account of..."
or, as a second best:
'Among them were: that the scheme is budget-neutral; capable of delivering emissions reductions in line with climate science; is simple fair and flexible; and takes account of...'

Either the verbs depending on 'among them were' are all in one tense or in another - they should not be in different tenses. I suspect that in the first sentence they are in some kind of subjunctive or conditional and in the second they are in the present, which isn't really okay. I wish I'd been taught the terminology for all this stuff, rather than relying on instinct. Bring back grammar in primary school, I say, although it is a bit late, to put it mildly, for me.

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