Why use past tense here? Misspelling?

Question

I think that the sentence "I think it's very helpful to go out and poll employees anonymously or attributed about how they feel about the project they're on..." means "I think it's very helpful that employees go out and poll anonymously or attribute their opinions about how they feel about the project they're on..."
If so, why the speaker used the past tense of "attribute?" Mispelling?

Context:
Take something like a survey. I think it's very helpful to go out and poll employees anonymously or attributed about how they feel about the project they're on and their management. We actually create a leadership index where we get the answer from everybody who works for someone, and that's a very interesting diagnostic that as we see it change over time, as we compare between the different groups it helps us know where we're doing the right things.

BarbaraPA · Accepted Answer

NL888, welcome to the forums!

At best, it's a typo. However, the use of the word "attribute" is quite odd. Perhaps "assess"?

Yankee · Answer

Hi NL888

I don't think the sentence is terribly well-written. The author probably wanted to talk about publishing specific comments anonymously vs attributing comments to specific people (i.e. not anonymous).

BarbaraPA · Answer

Oh, I think you're probably right, Amy. It's supposed to be a comparison to the aonymous part - I didn't get that. The last sentence is so poorly worded that it sounds like it was written in haste.

NL888 · Answer

Got it now.

Yankee · Answer

.
Yup, the last sentence left me cold, too.

NL888 · Answer

Am I on the right track? <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

BarbaraPA · Answer

On the right track for... ?

Is it your paragraph? If so, I'm sorry I spoke so bluntly. That last sentence does need some work though

Lil&apos; Ruby Rose · Answer

NL888I think that the sentence "I think it's very helpful to go out and poll employees anonymously or attributed about how they feel about the project they're on..." means "I think it's very helpful that employees go out and poll anonymously or attribute their opinions about how they feel about the project they're on..."

Hi GG - I think NL888 is asking us for a paraphrase.

Hi NL888,

The quotation reads as if it is a transcription from live speech. When people are speaking without a prepared script, it's not uncommon for the subject to go astray a little. It sounds like someone talking about how an image for a political party is created. I would paraphrase the quotation this way:

Let's consider a survey. I think it is useful for [the employer/manager] to get feedback from employees about the projects they are working on, and how they are being managed. You will get different information when employees speak anonymously than when their employer knows who said what. Both kinds of information are useful.

We gather information about a specific employer from everyone who works for them. The feedback is interesting: as we get different information over time, and as we are able to compare the opinions of different groups of people, we are able to determine whether what we are doing is effective.

LRR

Neeraj Jain · Answer

"Attributed" is a misspelling here.

Yankee · Answer

Neeraj Jain"Attributed" is a misspelling here.

I disagree completely. "Attributed" is apparently precisely what the author intended to say and write: Any comment made during the poll can either be published anonymously or attributed specifically to the person who made the comment. The sentence is simply not very clearly written.

Why use past tense here? Misspelling?

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