TENSE CASE

posted by James Reel

    Does the Arizona Daily Star employ copy editors anymore? Here’s the lede from a wire story in today’s edition:

An elderly man is struck by a hit-and-run driver and as he lie there dying, thieves were making off with his groceries.

    “Man is struck” … “thieves were making off”? So the action starts in the present tense but before the sentence ends it was sliding into past imperfect? (Note to the humorless: I did that intentionally.) And then there’s “as he lie there dying.” Looks like somebody has been scolded too often about not knowing the difference between “lie” and “lay,” and has now eliminated the latter even from its proper usage.
    These are pretty basic errors, and they must have passed under the eyes of at least two copy editors and one page proofer, if things work the way they used to. Obviously, something isn’t working at the Star.