Sentence of the Week #17

[From Michelle Yeoman and Barbara Gastel:]

Welcome to the newest installment in this series. Perhaps you already read the solution to last week’s sentence when we posted it as a comment. Do you like our providing the solutions early in this way? Feel free to post a comment to let us know.

In case you haven’t yet read the solution (or in case you want to review it), the solution appears below. Then, as usual, the installment ends with the new Sentence of the Week.

Editing Solution: Last Week’s Sentence

As a reminder, below is Sentence of the Week #16:

The principle investigator leads the research team.

The error in this sentence is the word principle, which should be principal. Thus, the corrected sentence reads as follows:

The principal investigator leads the research team.

Our compliments to everyone who made this correction!

Principle and principal are homonyms—words that sound the same but have different meanings. Principle is a noun that means law, rule, or doctrine. (Example: “A principle of business is that the customer is always right.”) The adjective principal, on the other hand, means main, primary, chief, or foremost. (Example: “My principal complaint is the committee’s lack of progress.”)

By the way, principal can also be a noun meaning the head of a school. (Example: “The principal presented awards to the students.”)

Some people might wonder: Why not change principal investigator to the more concise main investigator? The reason is that the term principal investigator (sometimes abbreviated PI) has a specific meaning: the researcher in charge of a project. Thus, it should not be changed.

And now, onward to this week’s sentence. 

Sentence of the Week #17

The sentence below has 1 definite error:

Patients with flu-like symptoms were administered with antiviral drugs.

Please correct the error, and submit the corrected sentence and any remarks as a comment on this post. We plan to provide and discuss the solution as a comment in about 2 days, as well as including it in the next Sentence of the Week post.

Do you have a sentence that you would like us to consider using as the Sentence of the Week? Please e-mail submissions to Michelle at msyeoman@gmail.com with the subject line “Sentence of the Week”. Submissions should be your own work—don’t nominate a colleague’s writing :). 

Please also feel free to e-mail suggestions relating to this series.