Dennis Hackethalhttps://blog.dennishackethal.com/Comments on post ‘Wrong-Number Pattern’ on Dennis Hackethal’s Blog2024-03-29T10:47:16+00:00dennis<p>Liam Neeson (or perhaps the screenwriter) makes a different but nonetheless interesting mistake in the 2008 film <em>Taken</em> when he says, in his famous ‘speech’ to the abductors of his character’s daughter:</p>
<blockquote><p>[W]hat I do have are a very particular set of skills.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It should be ‘is’ instead of “are” since the subject is “set” not “skills”. ‘Set’ is singular; it doesn’t matter that it’s a “set of skills”, i.e., a set of something plural. The set itself is still singular even if it contains many things.</p>
<p>In this example, the verb is <em>closer</em> to the subject than to the other (non-preceding) noun, so it doesn’t match the wrong-number pattern I have laid out. I suspect it’s unusual for such a mistake to happen, and rather glaring, too. They should have re-shot the scene.</p>
https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/wrong-number-pattern#comment-364Comment 364 by dennis2022-05-10T21:36:19Z2022-05-10T21:36:19Zdennis<p>An instance of the wrong-number pattern observed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/RossJacobs/about" rel="ugc">here</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The emotions of a horse comes first […].</p>
</blockquote>
https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/wrong-number-pattern#comment-365Comment 365 by dennis2022-05-12T05:06:03Z2022-05-12T05:06:03Zdennis<p>Im Deutschen gibt es dasselbe Muster wohl auch. So sagt David Deutsch in einem <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/physiker-david-deutsch-es-gibt-eine-wahrheit-aber-wir-sind-unfaehig-sie-zu-erkennen-a-408cb5f3-fa58-4604-b2fe-b6ded79899c2" rel="ugc">Spiegel-Interview</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Am Anfang des Zweiten Weltkriegs sah niemand voraus, dass die Eigenschaften des exotischen Elements Uran irgendeine Rolle für den Ausgang des Krieges haben könnte.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Allerdings ist unklar, ob Deutsch denselben Fehler im Englischen macht und der Spiegel ihn ins Deutsche übertragen hat oder ob er sich erst bei der Übersetzung seitens des Spiegels eingeschlichen hat.</p>
https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/wrong-number-pattern#comment-366Comment 366 by dennis2022-05-20T01:07:05Z2022-05-20T01:07:05Zdennis<p>Another instance of the wrong-number pattern from <a href="https://infura.io/" rel="ugc">https://infura.io/</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Our suite of high availability APIs and Developer Tools provide […].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s one suite. Should say ‘provides’.</p>
https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/wrong-number-pattern#comment-376Comment 376 by dennis2022-06-23T23:45:08Z2022-06-23T23:45:08Zdennis<p>Another <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1544341991860817920" rel="ugc">instance</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>[T]he lies of the Uvalde police department is no longer front page news</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They’re multiple lies, so it should say ‘<em>are</em> no longer’.</p>
https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/wrong-number-pattern#comment-386Comment 386 by dennis2022-07-05T15:41:06Z2022-07-05T15:41:06Zdennis<p>I think there’s an instance of the wrong-number pattern in David Deutsch’s <a href="https://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/taking-children-seriously-and-fallibilism/" rel="ugc">‘Taking Children Seriously and fallibilism’</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>[W]hat passes for rival educational theories all depend on structures of arbitrary authority […].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The verb should be singular ‘depends’ because “what” is the subject, and it refers to a <a href="https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2018/03/what-2.html#:%7E:text=singular%20concept" rel="ugc">singular concept</a> – hence the singular “passes”. Deutsch mistakenly took the closer preceding noun ‘theories’ to be the subject and hence assigned a plural number to the verb.</p>
<p>To play devil’s advocate, the word ‘what’ <em>can</em> be <a href="https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2018/03/what-2.html#:%7E:text=As%20we%20wrote%20in%202012,are%20what%20make%20you%20smarter.%E2%80%9D" rel="ugc">singular or plural</a>. But if it were plural in the quote above, the verb would be ‘pass’ instead of “passes”, and the beginning would read: ‘What pass for rival educational theories all depend on structures’ – and that doesn’t sound right, either. So I don’t think ‘what’ can be plural here.</p>
<p>Lastly, the sentence would read better to me if “rival educational theories” were singular as well. Since, if the number of the word “passes” is correct, whatever “passes” must be singular, it can only be one thing at a time that passes as an educational theory. So, ideally, to my non-native-speaker mind, the sentence would read: ‘What passes for a rival educational theory all depends on’ etc.</p>
https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/wrong-number-pattern#comment-402Comment 402 by dennis2022-08-08T18:30:33Z2022-08-08T18:30:33Zdennis<p>In <em>The Batman</em> (2022) – spoiler alert, I guess – the Riddler <a href="https://the-batman-universe.fandom.com/wiki/Riddler#:%7E:text=every%20winter%20one%20of%20the%20babies%20die" rel="ugc">says</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>[E]very winter one of the babies die […].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No, really. You can watch him say it <a href="https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/92cc6822-779c-4b34-8a17-acb252cf7fa9" rel="ugc">here</a>.</p>
<p>How did the director not notice this?</p>
https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/wrong-number-pattern#comment-420Comment 420 by dennis2022-08-30T02:57:45Z2022-08-30T02:57:45Zdennis <blockquote><p>[A]ll proposed evidence for consciousness of animals thus far are either false or based on bad epistemology.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Should be ‘is’ instead of “are”. But the verb’s closest preceding noun is “animals”, which is plural, so the author made the mistake.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/magnetthatcher/status/1457496012180709379" rel="ugc">https://twitter.com/magnetthatcher/status/1457496012180709379</a></p>
https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/wrong-number-pattern#comment-461Comment 461 by dennis2022-09-15T17:07:23Z2022-09-15T17:07:23Zdennis <blockquote><p>[…] QR readers work best when there are the same amount of white and black areas.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Should be ‘when there <em>is</em>’ because the verb refers to “amount”, but the verb’s closest preceding noun is “readers”, which is plural, so again the same mistake is made.</p>
<p>Arguably, maybe the author was thinking of the word “areas” and assigned the number that way. Either way, the sentence still fits the pattern.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/danhollick/status/1570040261950205954" rel="ugc">https://twitter.com/danhollick/status/1570040261950205954</a></p>
https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/wrong-number-pattern#comment-462Comment 462 by dennis2022-09-15T17:20:17Z2022-09-15T17:20:17Z2024-03-29T10:47:16+00:00