What's wrong with this sentence?

[MsAwesomeDragon]

This is part of dd2s homework. She needs to identify three errors in this sentence, but she (and I) can only find 2.

The police managed to seize the robber and return Ellies handbag

If it is a homework from 'twinkl', I often log in and find the answers! I maybe a teacher but my knowledge of grammar is terrible!

peachgreen Technically, yes, but people often use the term loosely to indicate a comma before a conjunction even when it's not in a longer list. At least people I know do. But you're right that the original meaning is the serial one.

I think the third mistake is the missing ‘to’.

@HereWeGoNow Capital H for Handbag because it is an thing - Capital letter for person/place/thing

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!

I'd go with the comma tbh

Lori that was an excellent ide to try logging in to twinkl to find the answer. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have come from there :(. Never mind, we'll see what the teacher says is right when (if?) it's marked.

I'm just joining because I want to know what the third error is. It wouldn't surprise me if the teacher thinks 'police' should be capitalised - I often see people make that mistake.

Shameless place marking for the answer.

Yes actually I am wondering if the teacher thinks it's Police, but as others say, that's wrong unless you are saying the name of the police force, or indeed, Sting and co 😀😀

No caps for ordinary non proper nouns unless you are German of course!

A comma isn’t used before “and”.
Should police have a capital P as it’s The Police rather than, for example, a policeman?
Otherwise, apostrophe for Ellie’s and full stop at the end of the sentence.

Lurking for an answer. It would make sense with another "to" - "to return"

But that's certainly not wrong

Is it the chance that the police have capacity to get involved in a simple robbery :)

Maybe the teacher thinks the 3rd error is that there should be a 'to' before 'return'--

The police managed (a) to seize the robber and
(b) to return Ellie's handbag.

So: 'The police managed to seize the robber and to return Ellie's handbag.'

This is not really correction an error though. Neither sentence is particularly graceful, but you might consider that you need parallel constructions after the verb 'managed', or you might consider that the sentence is fine with parallel constructions after 'managed to'.

I can only see 2.

On a side note do you seize robbers?
Drugs, stolen goods yes. People no?
Shouldnt it be catch or arrest?

You can’t put a comma before “and” here because it would separate the subject from the verb. It needs to read as, “The police managed to return,” but the sentence with a comma would read, “The police managed to, return,” which is clearly wrong.

It needs an apostrophe and a full stop. It doesn't need a comma.

SarahTancredi good point, sounds like it was forced in for a spelling

I think the third mistake is “robber”. I think it should be “thief”.

I'm assuming the robbers stole the handbag so there is no need for a comma. But if it was a separate act, then you do need a comma. I want to know what the answer is ( former English teacher...)

It doesn’t matter if it’s a separate act, surely. What matters is the sentence construction. If the sentence said, “The police managed to seize the robber, and they managed to return Ellie’s handbag,” you could have the comma- at a push, but only because of the second use of “ they managed to”.

Are they using the comma as a place to take a breath?

The teacher might think you need to put returned instead of return but although that would also be correct it's an optional correct as both versions are right grammatically, they just have slightly different nuances. If they returned her handbag it's a separate, straightforward act. If they return it then that verb is dependent on managed so effort was involved in returning it suggesting they may not have been able to but luckily they managed to.

But both are grammatically correct. (I'm a lapsed pedant.)

Any update, OP?

No updates. DD handed it in today, and will be set more spag homework tomorrow, so hopefully we'll see then.