New College is an innovative learning institution in Sarasota, Florida that’s suddenly become controversial. Here’s a headline from a recent edition of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune:

How does Richard Corcoran’s New College salary compare to other Florida universities?

I like the headline. But there’s a problem! A grammar stickler might say that the headline is wrong. You can’t compare a salary to a university.

Here’s the supposedly correct version: “How does Richard Corcoran’s salary compare to that of other Florida universities?”

My response is…bosh. I hate that of, and I refuse to use it. It’s clumsy, unnatural and unnecessary. Nobody who reads that headline about New College is going to be confused.

Grammar sticklers sometimes forget that our brains are superbly wired to process language. Sentences don’t need to be carefully balanced (despite what an overenthusiastic English teacher might have told us). Our brains happily figure out what’s going on.

Mary Norris – former copyeditor for The New Yorker magazine – discovered that some dangling modifiers make more sense and read better if you don’t fix them.

A wise woman! We would do well to follow her lead.

                           Photo courtesy of Lawrence G. Miller