Botched Sentences

Every day on the Web, I read sentences that force me to edit before I can understand.

First, there is the "one...they" confusion. "One" is singular, but "they" is plural. A Ph.D. takes that confusion even further when he writes, "The level of autonomy and independence that one achieves influences both the range of a person’s ability to adapt to his environment and their level of self-respect." If "one achieves," and one is a person with "his environment," how can we write of "their level of self-respect"?

Another gem: The new head of a research facility is said to "have duel French and English citizenship." I know that England and France are politically at odds theses days, but has it come to "duel citizenship"? I think the writer meant "dual."

I could go on, but I'll conclude with a badly written sentence whose unnecessary noun actions and passive verbs leave it so fuzzy that readers could miss the grammar error. "While occasional references to Islam as being etymologically linked to 'peace' is often made by Muslims, a comprehensive peace education curriculum is generally absent."

Stripped to its bare subject-and-verb structure, that sentence says "...references...is often made by Muslims." To rewrite this sentence, I would use the Doer-Action Rule, well known to my students. "While Muslims occasionally mention that Arabic etymology links the word 'Islam' to 'peace,' their schools generally do not teach peace comprehensively."