The KYC Reminder Email: Which Flags Are Real?
The bank's customer-communication team has drafted this paragraph for a KYC reminder email that will go to 40,000 customers: 'One of the branch managers have submitted the pending list. Having verified the KYC documents, the account was activated the same day. The customer was asked to submit his PAN card and Aadhaar card, and to sign the declaration. None of the documents were found missing. The data was shared with the vendor only after approval.' A junior editor flags five 'errors' and wants all five rewritten. The team lead asks you to decide, before the mailer is released, which flags are genuine grammar failures and which are merely style preferences that should not be changed.
1. Classify each of the five flagged items as a genuine error or a defensible choice, with a one-line reason for each.
Read the worked answer
1. 'One of the branch managers have submitted' - GENUINE ERROR. The subject of the verb is One, not managers; the phrase 'of the branch managers' is a prepositional modifier. Singular subject → has submitted. This is a rule, not a preference.
2. 'Having verified the KYC documents, the account was activated' - GENUINE ERROR. A dangling participle. The implied doer of 'having verified' must be the subject of the main clause, but the subject is the account, and an account cannot verify documents. Fix by naming the doer or converting to a passive clause: 'After the KYC documents were verified, the account was activated the same day.'
3. '...to submit his PAN card and Aadhaar card, and to sign the declaration' - DEFENSIBLE. The two infinitives are correctly parallel; the comma before 'and to sign' is optional. No change needed.
4. 'None of the documents were found missing' - DEFENSIBLE. None is treated as singular or plural depending on emphasis; both 'was' and 'were' are accepted in formal usage. A style preference, not an error.
5. 'The data was shared' - DEFENSIBLE. Data functions as a mass noun in modern business English; 'were' is also acceptable. Preference only.
Judgement: only items 1 and 2 must be corrected before release; the other three should be left alone to avoid churn and reviewer disagreement.
2. Rewrite only the sentences that must change, preserving meaning and formal register. Then state the one risk of 'correcting' all five flags.
Read the worked answer
Rewrites:
- 'One of the branch managers has submitted the pending list.'
- 'After the KYC documents were verified, the account was activated the same day.' (Alternative: 'Having verified the KYC documents, the officer activated the account the same day.')
Sentences 3, 4 and 5 stay exactly as drafted.
Risk of correcting all five: you introduce changes that are not required, and in a mass mailer every edit is a new chance to break something - here, forcing 'None of the documents was' or 'The data were' would make the tone stilted and could be challenged by a reviewer as wrong. In an exam-style judgement question, over-correction is the standard trap: the answer is the minimum set of fixes that removes actual rule violations.