Today is Tuesday. My morning newspaper (THE HINDU) came with the weekly supplement `YOUNG WORLD’.
Although the contents in the weekly column `HeyMath’ were child-friendly and challenging from the mathematics point of view, I have my own reservations about the level of English in the `Brain Teaser’ problems. Following are excepts from the list of problems:
c. Two different candles are lit…
d. A class of students were given two problems to solve…
Students may learn mathematics well by using such contents. But at the same time they may end up learning wrong English, from the above two examples, as follows:
Example c. "Two candles" itself means different candles. What is the need for the word "different"?
Example d. It is grammatically wrong to say, "A class of students were given two problems to solve..". It should be "A class of students was given two problems to solve.."
I view any sentence in English which is grammatically incorrect or which contains unnecessary and ambiguous words as reader unfriendly, especially when readers are students. What do you think?
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