Celebrity English

Proper diction requires an understanding of words that are commonly misused.

"There's only two people in the world you should lie to: the police and your girlfriend." - Jack Nicholson in In Touch Weekly

This sentence contains an error in subject/verb agreement and an error in diction.

The subject in this sentence is "two people," which is plural. The verb (the contraction form of "is") is singular. Change the number of the verb to plural ("are") to correct this error in agreement.

Jack refers to two people in this quote. However, while "your girlfriend" is a person, "the police" is not a person. "The police" is a group of people. "Police" is a special kind of collective noun, like "people" and "cattle," that is always plural.

To correct this error, replace "the police" with a singular noun ("a policeman") or restructure the sentence to remove the reference to two people:

"The only people in the world you should lie to are the police and your girlfriend."