I always thought that native speakers rarely misuse an article. But I was surprised to see the following article replete with articles errors.
The criminal liability of the corporation is determined by the estimate of its state of mind. For the purposes of this procedure, the corporation’s state of mind is a state of mind of its directors. Unlike the civil law, the criminal law considers the directors to be a personification of the corporation, not its agents.
The text is about corporations in general.
The edited version is
The criminal liability of a corporation is determined by an estimate of its state of mind. For the purposes of this procedure, a corporation’s state of mind is the state of mind of its directors. Unlike 0 civil law, 0 criminal law considers 0 directors to be the personification of a corporation, not its agents. (the edit was done by a grammarian)
Now we all could feel better about our own articles mistakes knowing they are more common among native speakers than usually thought. But we should also strive to limit the number of such mistakes to a minimum.
The criminal liability of the corporation is determined by the estimate of its state of mind. For the purposes of this procedure, the corporation’s state of mind is a state of mind of its directors. Unlike the civil law, the criminal law considers the directors to be a personification of the corporation, not its agents.
The text is about corporations in general.
The edited version is
The criminal liability of a corporation is determined by an estimate of its state of mind. For the purposes of this procedure, a corporation’s state of mind is the state of mind of its directors. Unlike 0 civil law, 0 criminal law considers 0 directors to be the personification of a corporation, not its agents. (the edit was done by a grammarian)
Now we all could feel better about our own articles mistakes knowing they are more common among native speakers than usually thought. But we should also strive to limit the number of such mistakes to a minimum.
Comments
The responsibility of the company reminds me of the responsibilty of the teacher but while the latter can normally be used in this way the former is odd sounding when referring to the class of 'corporations.
Just for the sake of argument, do you think it's possible to imagine a thing (in this case a corporation) and then refer to that thing in the way it represents the class of that thing. That, I think, would explain the choice of the articles in the text.
So you're saying that the grammarian in question is a native speaker.
Of British or American English?
MrP
Her name is Sophie Johnson but I'm not sure about her ethnicity.
what is wrong with this paragraph- Please, edit