In Johnny Hart’s B.C., an ant teacher asks her class, “Someone give me a sentence with a direct object.”

One of the students responds, “You are very pretty.”

“What’s the object?” asks the teacher, quite naturally.

“A good report card.”

Alas, there are times when the comic strips are the direct objects of grammar errors and don’t get a good report card. Here are a half-dozen mistakes that I’ve captured from the comic strips that appear in U-T San Diego. Identify and correct each comical error. Answers repose at the end of today’s column.

1. Ed Crankshaft: “I don’t know if I can play in our senior league tonight. My back is still bad.” Player 2: “My knee is still bad.” Player 3: “My shoulder is stiff.” Player 4: “My hip is bothering me.” Crankshaft: “Maybe we have a complete ballplayer between us.” — Crankshaft

2. I want to talk to you about you wanting your band to play at my wedding. — Sally Forth

3. I wish I was rich. — The Duplex

4. Cartoonist Stephan Pastis receives this suggestion for improving his comic strip: “Less crocs.” — Pearls Before Swine

5. My tail’s a victim of new innovations in athletic shoes. — Garfield

6. Sometimes I have this fear you’re going to send Michael and I off to boarding school. — Grand Avenue

Answers

1. Because there are four players involved, the punchline should read, “Maybe we have a complete ballplayer among us.” Between applies to two entities, among to more than two.

2. “About you wanting your band to play at my wedding” should be “about your wanting your band to play at my wedding.” Use the possessive pronoun before a gerund, which is an –ing form of a verb that acts as a noun, in this case wanting.

3. Was should be were because wish clauses take the subjunctive mood: “I wish I were rich.” Across the page on the same day, in Nest Heads, the young mother got it right: “I wish there were more kids around for Nick to interact with.”

4. Because crocs are countable, “Fewer crocs” is the correct form. In Family Circus, even little Jeffy got it right when he said to his mom, “If you think it would help with the drought, I’d volunteer to take fewer baths.”

5. Innovations are by definition new. “New innovations” is redundant, like “free gift” and “false pretenses.” Just innovations will do just fine.

6. That should be “Michael and me.” The noun and pronoun are both objects of the verb send, so the pronoun must be me, not I. This hypercorrection of pronoun case ranks high among the most common errors in current American usage.

Please send your questions and comments about language to richard.lederer@utsandiego.com