Give Peas a Chance...and They'll Brighten Your Stew

For Sunday dinner last night I put together a scrumptious (if I do say so myself) slow cooker yam stew with curry, snow peas, and ginger. Even my wife, who is as hypercritical as a Russian ice-skating judge, pronounced it superb.

The recipe, which I scissored out of the morning paper, includes the following words of counsel:

The peas are added at the last minute, which help maintain their vibrant green color.

This is one of those infractions that becomes more obvious when you say the sentence out loud. It's not the peas that are helping to maintain their color, it's the action of adding at the last minute, so we don't need the plural verb. It should be "helps." I would also point out that almost any time you put a color next to the word "color," one or the other can probably go. Since we all expect peas to be green, we can simply say "their vibrant color" in this context.

And what vibrant color, indeed! As proof, I offer this un-doctored photo of last night's repast:

Note that for optimum vibrancy, one must also blanche the peas before introducing them to the mixture.

TV Mobster Involved in Verb Disagreement: No Injuries Reported

From a wire service story today about a traffic accident involving "Sopranos" star James Gandolfini:

Neither the actor nor the suspected drunk driver who collided with him were hurt in the crash.

Interesting. When I first noticed this story online this morning it said "the suspected drunk driver who collided into him..." When I went back to grab the sentence for this posting, I noticed they fixed that bit of awkwardness, but they left the incorrect verb lying there at the scene of the accident. It should say that neither driver was hurt in the crash.