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FBI director Comey's email to Congress

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manhasnoname
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FBI director Comey's email to Congress [#permalink] New post   29 Oct 2016, 21:37
I'm very surprised to see the improper usage of English grammar by FBI director James Comey.

Here is a quote from his recent email to Congress: "In previous congressional testimony, I referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton's personal email server" .

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016 ... etter.html

The above quote gives me a sense that the email server, not Hillary, is former Secretary.

Did anyone else notice it? I am sure that it is definitely unacceptable on the GMAT. Does GMAT expect a little too high, for today's practical world, grammatical skills?
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DmitryFarber
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FBI director Comey's email to Congress [#permalink] New post   31 Oct 2016, 00:26
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I'm not seeing an error. He is using "former Secretary Clinton" as her title and then making her name possessive to modify the email server.

It's pretty common to use the form of title + possessive proper noun + noun: "President Obama's dog," "King Solomon's Mines," etc. We're not saying that Obama's dog is president or that Solomon's Mines are king!

Hopefully, this helps and we can avoid another email-related investigation! :D
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AjiteshArun
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Re: FBI director Comey's email to Congress [#permalink] New post   02 Nov 2016, 07:22
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manhasnoname wrote:
Does GMAT expect a little too high, for today's practical world, grammatical skills?
It's hard to be objective here, because words like "high" mean different things to different people. I think that the GMAT tests concepts that are relatively basic, and that the GMAT is nowhere near the "impractically formal" end of the scale when it comes to usage.
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Re: FBI director Comey's email to Congress [#permalink] New post   05 Nov 2016, 09:58
manhasnoname wrote:

Here is a quote from his recent email to Congress: "In previous congressional testimony, I referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton's personal email server" .



This sentence is actually a good example of how we're less nitpicky about the literal meaning of sentences in real life than the GMAT is. Did the FBI investigate the email server or Clinton's use of the server? I don't think the FBI would indict the server.
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Re: FBI director Comey's email to Congress [#permalink]
05 Nov 2016, 09:58

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