In our regular readings on philosophy, art, beauty, and other high-minded, intellectual subjects, we found the following error in this AP article titled, "Disney Backs 'High School Musical' Star":
"The films' wholesome nature — for a company that has made its name on family-friendly fare for generations — is a big part of its success." (emphasis ours)
This one is perhaps the most tricky of the disagreement examples we have found thus far because it all hinges on the placement of one tiny but significant piece of punctuation: the apostrophe. How many films are we talking about? If the subject is one film, the sentence should read: "The film's wholesome nature [snip] is a big part of its success." If the subject is plural, the sentence should read: "The films' wholesome nature [snip] is a big part of their success." If that still sounds awkward to you, it's because with the proper plural subjects, the non-count noun "nature" seems out of place. However, flip-flop the noun phrases on either side of the verb and you'll see what we mean: "A big part of the films' success [snip] is their wholesome nature." Isn't that better?
Because this is such a tricky situation, we're going to go easy on them and only give them the following Drunken Proofreading rating:
*** (three stars) - I needed a shot just to look myself in the mirror this morning.
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