Channel 7’s promo department can’t get it right either
March 9th, 2013
Channel 7’s latest promo for My Kitchen Rules is giving me the shits. Here I am trying to alert the world to this awful misuse and abuse of the language, and they push out one of the worst examples of bad english I’ve heard publicly for a long time. And yet again, it’s the confusion over plurals that is their problem.
Here’s what their promo says:
“The father and son that Australia have taken to their hearts.”
FAAAARRRRRKKKKK!!!!
“Australia” is a country. A single country. One. It is NOT a population. If they want to refer to Australia, then they MUST use it as a singular. That means saying …
“The father and son that Australia has taken to its heart.”
That makes sense. That is correct grammar. Alternatively, if they want to refer to a population (a plural), then what about …
“The father and son that Australians have taken to their hearts.”
That also makes sense. That is also correct grammar.
Maybe it’s time that Channel 7 asked me to be their answer to the ABC’s SCOSE (Standing Committee on Spoken English). Of course, ABC’s SCOSE seems to get it wrong so many times too, so maybe the ABC needs to hire me too.
(PS – I’m open to either offer. Or both.)