Opinion
A sloppy example of mayoral grammar
Persons at work on London’s roads, hopefully meeting new, tighter standards
Our mayor is, he proudly tells us, tightening the standards for roadworks and making it easier to report bad examples. Actually, that’s not exactly how he puts it. These are his precise words:
“I have just introduced new, tighter standards for roadworks and making it easier for you to tell us when you spot sloppy examples so we can take action to sort it out.”
I know I risk sounding like a grammar nazi here, but the two halves of that sentence really don’t go together properly. If he’d added ‘I am’ after the conjunction there would have been no problem. (There’s a plural-singular disagreement too, between spotting sloppy examples and sorting it out, but that doesn’t grate with me so much.)
Did Boris write that press release? If he did, I’m surprised at him. If, as seems probable, someone wrote it for him, he ought to check their work more thoroughly.
As for the substantive content of his message, these new standards seem fine. Long overdue, one might add. But just the right timing with a few months to go before the next election.
