A couple of days ago I got into a conversation about writing with a friend. She was surprised that I rarely discuss formal grammar in the English classes I teach and the two writing groups I facilitate. So what do I talk about?

Good question. I’m going to answer it by commenting on two sentences that caused me to do some analytical thinking in the last 24 hours.

1.  The latest issue of The New Yorker (December 23 and 30, 2013) features a provocative article about plant neurological systems that includes two subject-verb agreement errors on the same page (94). (Where was the copyeditor?) Here’s the first one:

It is only human arrogance, and the fact that the lives of plants unfold in what amounts to a much slower dimension of time, that keep us from appreciating their intelligence and consequent success.

If you read the sentence aloud, you’ll hear the mistake right away. The sentence is talking about human arrogance. The section beginning “and the fact that…” is extra, and your voice drops there. You’ll realize right away that the verb should be keeps us.

It is only human arrogance, and the fact that the lives of plants unfold in what amounts to a much slower dimension of time, that keeps us from appreciating their intelligence and consequent success.

2.  While typing for my husband today, I had some misgivings about this sentence (I should explain that he’s the gardening columnist for a newspaper):

Although podocarpus (P. macrophyllus) can grow 50 feet tall in sun or shade and make a handsome evergreen tree, it’s usually cultivated as a shrub.

The word “make” bothered me. If you link it to can, the sentence sounds correct: you’re saying podocarpus can grow tall and can make a tree. “Make” sounds right.

But if you’re reading quickly and not thinking about that word “can,” the sentence sounds wrong. Podocarpus makes (not make) a tree. I asked my husband if he wanted to take a chance on having readers think he made a mistake.

Nope. So we had to look for a solution. And there was another problem hidden within the sentence: The word and, which sets up a loose connection between the ideas he was writing about: “A podocarpus grows tall and makes a tree…” Isn’t there’s a direct relationship between a penchant for growing and the resulting height of the tree?

So I started looking for a way to both avoid  ambiguity (is make right or wrong?) and set up a stronger connection between the two ideas in the sentence.

Here’s my solution (which, I’m happy to say, my husband really liked):

Although podocarpus (P. macrophyllus) can grow 50 feet tall in sun or shade to make a handsome evergreen tree, it’s usually cultivated as a shrub.

Amazing: Just replace “and” with “to,” and the sentence is much better.

Back to my original point: Writing is a complex activity. Good writers have to grapple with all kinds of issues. Writing teachers and professional writers need to learn how to talk about our mental processes. That kind of problem solving should be an important part of every writing class.