> i'm no English expert, but I can't take seriously an article with grammar errors :/
It's arguably a regional/dialect distinction. Here "layoffs" is being treated as a collective noun, similar to how people say "the data is" instead of "the data are". Notice how people usually say "layoffs" when referring to the entire round.
English has less dialectal variation than most languages, so English speakers (particularly educated British or American speakers) aren't used to seeing it, but collectivization of nouns is one of the more common ones to spot. If you pay attention, you'll start seeing other examples here and there.
I can't think of a collective noun that ends in S that I would follow with "is".
Rules are dialect-dependent, though (or a better way to frame it: "rules" are observations about clusters which are used to define a dialect).
> I can't think of a collective noun that ends in S that I would follow with "is".
Sure, in the forms of American and British English that most HN readers are used to, there may not be any. That isn't universal, though.
There's a related phenomenon which may be more familiar to you: some English speakers will use a possessive form even when no possessive is being conveyed semantically, eg: "I'm going to Burger King's", or "Wal-Mart's is a good store". This particular one is fairly well-documented.
pretty sure this is also incorrect and something to be avoided in print, no?
"data" vs "datum" is pretty obscure. While an outfit like the New York Times may know the difference, I doubt that most people even know that "data" is always plural, since its forms are not even coming from English.
I might type "walmart's a good store" in an informal setting (not as a possessive, but as a contraction for "walmart is"), but no American / British newspaper article would let that through. Its against the rules of english grammar.
I'm curious whether kids in Indian primary school are taught that "the layoffs is" is correct grammar, or whether its just a common mistake (like walmart's).
In this case, the collective noun "savings" is used with the singular article "a". This one shows up in both spoken and written American English.
Obviously, I can point intellectually to how and why it's correct, but it still sounds somehow weird and a bit folksy to this immigrant :)
Hardly. Indian English is not even very different from some dialects of British English (just not the one British dialect that most non-Brits are used to). Even many of the features that people commonly associate with Indian English are actually taken from British English and still present in present-day British dialects (again, just not the one that most non-Brits are familiar with).
There are other dialects of English that are far more different from Standard American English, to the point where an American speaker will have trouble understanding them altogether, as opposed to being able to understand the meaning correctly albeit with noticeable distinctions.
But you're right that there's a good chance that this is a dialect difference.
The issue with critizising someones grammer are that it always slips in an error or two.
Nothing is perfect. Get over it.
As opposed to what? People just showing up to interviews unannounced?
> or equate a university degree with ability to program computers?
Most of the really successful tech companies are doing this to a small degree. You're at a pretty big advantage if you try to get an early internship at FAANG if you went to Harvard or Stanford or whatnot - and you probably should be (and this is coming from someone who believes strongly those universities are mostly a waste).
The unis already did the hard work of sifting through students to find ones who are willing to work 100x more than necessary just to get into a slightly better school. If you're FAANG, that's sort of who you want to hire for a tech internship, and eventually take advantage of with an underpaying salary for namebrand recognition upon graduation.
> Muphry's law is an adage that states: "If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written."[1] The name is a deliberate misspelling of "Murphy's law".
i'm no English expert, but I can't take seriously an article with grammar errors :/