Vetting the Lobby Notice: Four Proposed Edits and One Missed Error
Your branch manager has drafted a notice for the lobby board and asks you to vet it before it is printed:
'Customers are hereby informed that with effect from 1 August, cheques deposited after 3:30 p.m. will be processed on the next working day only. The revised timings, which applies to all savings and current accounts, has been approved by the regional office. Customers are requested to kindly note that the branch will remain open on the first Saturday of the month for clearing purposes only. Please contact the help desk for any further clarifications regarding this matter.'
A colleague proposes four edits: (a) change 'applies' to 'apply'; (b) delete the word 'kindly'; (c) change 'clarifications' to 'clarification'; (d) move 'only' so the sentence reads 'only for clearing purposes'. The manager wants a clear decision on each edit, an identification of the error that none of the four edits touches, and a view on whether any of these changes alters what the notice actually conveys to a customer.
1. For each of the four proposed edits, state whether you would accept it and give the grammatical or stylistic reason.
Read the worked answer
(a) applies to apply - accept. The relative clause 'which applies to all savings and current accounts' takes its antecedent from 'The revised timings', which is plural. The verb inside the relative clause must therefore be plural: 'which apply'. The intervening phrase 'to all savings and current accounts' does not change the number of the antecedent.
(b) delete 'kindly' - accept as a style fix, not a correction. 'Customers are requested to kindly note' stacks a politeness marker on an already polite formula, a construction common in Indian official English but regarded as redundant in formal drafting. Nothing is grammatically wrong; the edit simply tightens register.
(c) clarifications to clarification - accept, but label it optional. 'Any further clarification' is the idiomatic form in notices because 'any' already signals an indefinite, uncountable request. 'Clarifications' is defensible where several distinct points are expected, so this is a preference, not an error. Do not present it to the manager as a correction.
(d) move 'only' - reject, but on drafting grounds rather than grammar. Both versions restrict the purpose of opening, and neither is ungrammatical. The original attaches 'only' directly to 'for clearing purposes', which is exactly the intended restriction, so moving it buys nothing and risks a fresh proofreading cycle.
2. Identify the error that none of the four edits addresses, correct it, and explain the rule you applied.
Read the worked answer
The missed error is in the main clause: 'The revised timings ... has been approved by the regional office' should read 'have been approved'.
The subject is 'timings', which is plural. The relative clause 'which apply to all savings and current accounts' sits between the subject and its verb, and that separation is what causes the slip: the writer's ear latches onto the singular 'accounts' or to the singular-looking 'office' later in the sentence rather than to the true subject. The rule is simply that a verb agrees with its subject, not with the nearest noun inside an intervening phrase or clause.
Note the knock-on effect: once edit (a) is accepted, the sentence contains two plural verbs in a row - 'which apply ... have been approved' - and the agreement fault becomes more visible, not less. This is why the four-edit list cannot be treated as a complete checklist. A proofreader who fixes only the items on someone else's list will hand back a notice that still contains a subject-verb disagreement.
3. The manager says: 'None of these edits changes the meaning, so the notice is legally safe as it stands.' Assess that claim.
Read the worked answer
The claim is half right and should not be signed off as it stands.
On meaning, the manager is broadly correct. Edits (a) and the uncorrected 'has been approved' are pure agreement errors; neither changes who approved what. Edits (b) and (c) are register only. Edit (d) preserves the restriction on purpose either way. So no proposed change shifts the operative content.
On safety, the draft has real gaps that the four-edit list distracts from. First, 'with effect from 1 August' carries no year, so the notice is undated in substance; a customer reading the board in a later year cannot tell which 1 August applies. Add the year. Second, the cut-off is described only as 'cheques deposited after 3:30 p.m.', without saying where - counter deposit, drop box, or clearing collection - which matters if the drop box is emptied the next morning. Third, the third sentence implies the branch is otherwise shut on the first Saturday, which may not be the position the branch actually operates; if it is not, the sentence should state plainly that only clearing-related services will be available.
Verdict: fix the agreement error, accept (a), (b) and optionally (c), decline (d), and send the draft back for the year and the scope of the cut-off to be specified.