Focusing on wrong thing

To the editor:

It’s reassuring to know that everything is so right in Riverdale that its only newspaper can devote 18 inches of precious editorial space in its Nov. 19 issue to events in Chittenden, Vermont; Arvada Colorado; Boston; Selingsgrove, Pennsylvania; and Wheeling, West Virginia.

At the same time, the newspaper can let slip such grammatical violations in the same issue’s Police Beat column that “a sticky-fingered menace made sure that was the case when they reportedly reached into a mailbox” or that “one would-be shopper took it a little too far when they reportedly snuck into” a children’s clothing store.

Has no proofreader at The Riverdale Press learned their subjects must agree in number, and that “a” and “they” don’t?

As Yogi Berra said when he was the manager of the then-inept New York Mets: “Doesn’t anyone around here know how to play this game?”

Avrum Hyman

EDITOR’S NOTE: The use of “they” as a singular pronoun is acceptable when it references someone of unknown or unspecified gender, as was the case here.

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