Doubts on finding grammatical mistakes

Question

I request you to rectify only those mistakes which you are absolutely sure of.

The theory of Karma implies that every individual is (1) answerable to his actions, both good and bad. By this it is understood that (2) each one will have to face the consequences of all (3) deeds he performs — the rewards in the case of the former and the punishments in the case of the latter and this (4) is manifest as the joys and sorrows one experiences.

1. First I thought "answerable to" should be replaced with "answerable for". But is it really necessary?

2. Is the usage "each one" correct? I think it should be replaced with "everybody" or should be just "each".

3. Is "deeds" okay or should it be "the deeds"? Because we're talking about deeds of a particular person.

4. "these manifest" or "are manifested" or something else? Which is correct and why?

5. Is there any other grammatical mistake in the passage? Please bring it to light. Thanks!

Answer 1

1. Answerable to and answerable for mean different things:

   • A person is answerable to another person i.e. an employee is answerable to their boss. If the employee did something wrong they would have to account to (answer to) their boss.
   • If someone was answerable for something then they are the ones that were responsible for that something happening.

   For your passage, the person is the one responsible for their actions, so answerable for is the better option.

2. As the first sentence referred to both people and their actions, saying each one is a bit vague (does it mean the person or the actions?). Rather than replacing it with everybody though, change it to each individual (or person) as it refers to a particular person.

3. All deeds is fine as it relates to multiple deeds, rather than one person

4. & 5. As joys and sorrows are multiple experiences this is should be in the plural forms: "these/they are manifested as...".

   Having said that, the second sentence is rather long and I would recommend splitting the last section off it. The third sentence could be "These consequences are manifested as the joys and sorrows one experiences." The word "and" that appears after latter would then be dropped.

   This leaves each sentence discussing one idea only, rather a long sentence discussing two different ideas. The first sentence discusses the theory, the second sentence discusses what the theory is understood to be and the third sentence relates to what the consequences are.