Common English Blunders

“This should be another cumulative criteria.”

Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Nouns, Plurals

I saw this in a document for a software project’s business requirements.

Problem:
The noun “criteria” is not singular.

Explanation:
The adjective “another” means an additional, which requires a singular noun.

The noun “criteria” is the plural of the singular noun “criterion”, which means a standard for evaluation.

Many will use “criteria” when what they mean is “criterion”. I believe that this is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. The noun “criteria” is simpler to say than is the noun “criterion”. In particular, it’s simpler to speak a word that ends with “a” than it is to speak a word that ends with “on” (which has to be held longer than “a”).

Solution:
“This should be another cumulative criterion.”

“The Nelson’s”

Apostrophes, Common English Blunders, Plurals, Possessives

I saw this on a luggage tag at O’Hare airport.

Problem:
An apostrophe appears where it should not.

Explanation:
An apostrophe should not be used to pluralize a family name. The brightly colored luggage tag was meant to call the reader’s attention to the fact that the luggage belonged to the Nelson family.

Use of the definite article on the luggage tag told me that the family name was Nelson.

The plural of Nelson is Nelsons (not Nelson’s). For example, The Nelsons live in suburban Chicago.

If the luggage-tag writer had wanted to indicate that the luggage belonged to the Nelsons, then he could have written The Nelsons’. Note the possessive apostrophe after the pluralized family name.

Solution:
“The Nelsons”

“… a tool to manage the project end to end.”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Prepositions

I saw this in a presentation.

Problem:
A preposition is missing.

Explanation:
The presenter wanted to tell his audience about the extent to which the tool would let the tool’s users manage the project.

When I first read “a tool to manage the project end to end”, I put “project” and “end” together. I believed that the presenter meant “project’s end” when I saw “project end”. However, I then was thrown by the seemingly extraneous “to end” that followed “project end”.

As I listened to the presenter, I realized that the tool lets its users manage “the project” (not “the project end”) from the beginning of the project to the end of the project.

Another way to state this is from one end of the project to the other end of the project.

Simplifying this phrase, we get the adverbial phrase from end to end and therefore the simplest solution to the problem.

Solution:
“… a tool to manage the project from end to end.”