What is missing in this sentence?

The historic cabin relocation, the Russian Orthodox Church restoration, the new soccer fields, lessening the effects the dipnet fishery, and dealing with the bear problem areas are all possibilities that have been put on the list.

Nergh!!! Our local newspaper seems to have lost the use of a teensy, two-letter word . . . OF. It’s small . . . doesn’t take up much room in a line of type . . . seem innocuous . . . but is so important to the flow of a sentence.

(the sentence should read lessening the effects OF the dipnet fishery . . . )

To top it off . . . Word doesn’t even highlight the grammatical error. We’re becoming an age, I fear, of dumbing down our language. The nuns who taught me back in the day (1956-1968) would surely be reaching for rulers to apply a measure of learning just as soon as they read that sentence.

I remember “you” being understood at the beginning of a sentence (i.e. “Go get a tissue.” would mean the same as “You go get a tissue.”), but I do not remember the word “of” being understood in a sentence.

Call me old school . . . call me old . . . call me whatever you desire . . . but, please forgive the shiver I exhibit when I spot such errors in our local rag. My journalism teacher taught us to write to a sixth grade level as that is where most readers are comfortable. It appears we are now writing to an even lower grade level than that.

This happens more often than not with one reporter. I should note that there are spelling errors in the paper every day – some days I want to take a pencil and blue line them all, then send the paper back to the paper makers. Likely it wouldn’t help.

Just smiling and shaking my head . . .