USE AND MISUSE

Is this correct: “All agents continue to be assisting customers”?

Question by na2rboy, new Forum member (March 10, 2012):

Hi, everyone! At work, I have people telling me that this sentence is correct:

“All available agents continue to be assisting other customers.”

Is it correct? If not, what rule is it breaking? 

In my head, it feels wrong. Maybe because I am desperate to make it “All available agents are still assisting other customers.”

Thanks!

My reply to na2rboy:

No, I don’t think this sentence you presented is structurally and syntactically correct:

“All available agents continue to be assisting other customers.”

It’s one of those iffy, officious, and convoluted officious statements that get established in the workplace despite being grammatically faulty.

For one, the verb phrase “continue to be assisting other customers” uses the verb “continue” in a very awkward way. In this construction, the phrase “to be assisting other customers” is actually an infinitive phrase—a noun form—functioning as the direct object of the verb “continue.” However, in such constructions, the verb “continue” happens to have a grammar peculiarity: it’s one of those verbs that require the verb embedded in the infinitive phrase to drop the “to” and become what’s called a “bare infinitive.” Below are some examples of how this bare-infinitive transformation works for infinitive phrases that serve as direct object of the verb “continue”:

“continue to be working beyond midnight” becomes “continue working beyond midnight”
“continue to be seeing ghosts” becomes “continue seeing ghosts”
“continue to be teaching algebra” becomes “continue teaching algebra”

When we apply this bare-infinitive transformation to “All available agents continue to be assisting other customers,” the sentence gets streamlined as follows:

“All available agents continue assisting other customers.”

Even in this corrected construction, however, the sentence remains semantically questionable. It’s a fuzzy statement because the verb “continue” doesn’t yield a logical, real-life sense. Indeed, what does it mean when “All available agents continue assisting other customers”? By using the verb “continue,” the statement evokes a wrong sense of a permanent state instead of just a temporary one. Indeed, “continue” is actually a wrong choice of verb in describing the situation at hand. The correct sense will emerge when that verb is replaced by either “are busy” or “are” in these grammatically airtight alternative constructions:

“All available agents are busy assisting other customers.”
“All available agents are assisting other customers at the moment.”

Although the first statement above is grammatically and semantically perfect, I’m leery of its use of the word “busy,” which I think can rub the listener the wrong way. To my mind, the more palatable statement from a customer relations standpoint is the second sentence. Try saying it aloud to check if my perception is right:

“All available agents are assisting other customers at the moment.”

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Using the anticipatory “there”

Question by Stella, new Forum member (March 11, 2012):

Is the sentence constructions below possible this sentence?

“There is a cat there.”
“There it is the MP3,” in the sense of “The MP3 is there.”

Thanks a lot.

My reply to Stella:

Yes, the two sentences below that you presented are grammatically possible:

(1) “There is a cat there.”
(2) “There it is the MP3,” in the sense of “The MP3 is there.”

Sentence 1 actually uses two senses of “there”—the first the so-called anticipatory “there,” and the second, the pointing “there.” Be definition, the anticipatory “there” is pronoun that carries little or no independent meaning but simply points forward to the notional subject that’s placed later in the sentence for reasons of end weight or emphasis. In the sentence “There is a cat there,” the notional subject of the anticipatory “there” is the noun “cat.” On the other hand, the second “there” in that sentence is the pointing “there”—an adjective used for directional emphasis.

Although grammatically possible, Sentence 2 is actually a run-on sentence that strict grammarians are likely to sneer at. To make it grammatically aboveboard, it needs to be punctuated in any of the following ways:

“There it is, the MP3.”
“There it is: the MP3,”
“There it is—the MP3.”

All three punctuations work but the third—the double dash—is preferable stylistically because it delivers just the right sense of pause needed by the statement.

RELATED READING:
The wisdom of routinely avoiding anticipatory “there is/are” clauses

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Problem in subject-verb agreement

Question from Miss Mae, Forum member (March 7, 2012):

Is the construction below correct, Sir?

“Zuid Holland is the ‘little region’ that the Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban behold.”

A collective noun calls for a singular verb (especially if those involved n the unit are in unison). But the nouns it is referring to are more than one. How should I go about this then?

My reply to Miss Mae:

Yes, the construction of this sentence that you presented is correct:

“Zuid Holland is the ‘little region’ that the Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban behold.”

The construction above is actually a complex sentence, with “Zuid Holland is the ‘little region’” as the main clause and the relative clause “that the Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban behold” as the subordinate or dependent clause. It’s true, as you pointed out, that “little region” is a collective noun, but it really has no syntactical relation to the plural-form verb “behold” in the subordinate clause. That verb is operative only in the subordinate clause, and it is in the present-tense plural form because the doer of its action isn’t “Zuid Holland” or “little region” but the group of plural nouns “Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban.” There is therefore no subject-verb disagreement in that sentence at all.

Two alternative constructions of that sentence are these:

(1)  “Zuid Holland is the ‘little region’ that is beheld by the Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban.” 
(2) “Zuid Holland is the ‘little region’ beheld by the Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban behold.”

In these two constructions, no question about subject-verb agreement arises because the verb “beheld” is in the past participle form, unlike in the original sentence construction where a possible subject-verb disagreement might be perceived—wrongly, of course—because “behold” is in the present-tense.
  
By the way, for those who are not very knowledgeable in world geography, Zuid Holland is South Holland (“zuid” is the Dutch word for “south”), a province situated on the North Sea in the western part of the Netherlands. Its provincial capital is The Hague and it is one of the most densely populated and industrialized areas in the world.

Rejoinder by Miss Mae (March 10, 2012):

Uh, oh. I thought wrongly!

Because the reason why I got confused with this construction is the presence of the five collective nouns (“the Dutch, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, and Aruban behold”).

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The proper way to construct elliptical sentences

Question e-mailed by Fern S. (January 25, 2012):

Dear Mr. Carillo,

I wrote a draft memorandum to our personnel department. The last sentence of the memorandum read as follows:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and are interested to transfer to our department.”

Our assistant manager edited the foregoing sentence by deleting the word “are” after “and.” The edited sentence reads as follows:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and interested to transfer to our department.”

Was the correction correct?

Thank you.

Fern 

My reply to Fern:

Yes, I think your assistant manager’s correction of that sentence in your draft memo is well-advised. By deleting the word “are” after “and” from your original sentence construction, your assistant manager has come up with this more streamlined and better-sounding elliptical sentence:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and interested to transfer to our department.”

Recall that an elliptical construction is a sentence that omits from a clause one or more words that would otherwise be required by the remaining elements. This is done to streamline a sentence and make it more concise and easier to articulate. For instance, the sentence “The youngest staff in the office is as competent as the eldest” is an elliptical form of this fully spelled-out sentence: “The youngest staff in the office is as competent as the eldest staff in the office.” Note that the second mention of the words “staff in the office” has been dropped to streamline the sentence and make it more concise.

Let’s take a closer look at your original sentence construction:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and are interested to transfer to our department.”

The above sentence construction of yours is actually also an elliptical or streamlined version of the following fully spelled-out sentence that has two relative clauses:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and who are interested to transfer to our department.”

When you streamlined the above sentence, however, you only dropped the “who” of the second relative clause to come up with this elliptical version:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and are interested to transfer to our department.”  

While there’s nothing grammatically wrong with the streamlined sentence above, I would say that your effort to make it elliptical wasn’t done completely because you only dropped the relative pronoun “who” and retained the second linking verb “are.” The norm when making such sentences elliptical is to drop both the relative pronoun “who” and the verb that follows it. By dropping the second linking verb “are” as well, your assistant manager did right in completing that “ellipticalization” process as follows:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees, who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and interested to transfer to our department.”

Even so, I think the English of the above elliptical sentence as well as that of your original sentence construction isn’t grammatically airtight. It actually needs to drop the comma before the relative clause “who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and interested to transfer to our department.” This is because that relative clause is actually restrictive in nature and as such, that comma before it is grammatically unnecessary. Removing that comma would convert that relative clause into the correct restrictive form, as follows:

“Also, please be informed that we are willing to consider regular employees who are licensed Mechanical Engineers and interested to transfer to our department.” 

You will recall that in English grammar, a restrictive relative clause is one that’s essential to the definiteness of the word it modifies, as in “The man who was caught speeding is a high government official.” In contrast, a nonrestrictive relative clause is one that’s not essential to the definiteness of the meaning of the word it modifies, “My eldest daughter, who has a master’s degree, has decided not to pursue a PhD for the time being.” One distinctive difference between them is that a restrictive relative clause can’t be dropped from the sentence because doing so seriously changes the meaning of that sentence, while a nonrestrictive relative clause is actually optional to that sentence and can be dropped at will. Another difference is that a restrictive relative clause shouldn't be set off by commas, while a nonrestrictive relative clause needs to be set off from the main clause by a comma or a pair of commas depending on its position in the sentence. 

RELATED POSTINGS ON ELLIPTICAL SENTENCES: 
“Deconstructing and understanding those puzzling elliptical sentences,” August 28, 2011
“Elliptical sentences often read and sound better than regular sentences,” June 18, 2010

RELATED POSTINGS ON RELATIVE CLAUSES:
“Guideposts for using ‘who,’ ‘that,’ and ‘which’ to link relative clauses,” April 2, 2011
“Why it’s tough choosing between ‘that’ and ‘which’ to link relative clauses,” April 9, 2011

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The proper way to construct a question in a news headline

Question e-mailed by Jhumur Dasgupta, December 26, 2011:

Hi,

I am a journalism student and I came across your posts on English usage. I am a regular visitor of your forum.

Recently, I came across this headline in a website: 

Why are there less women CEOs, asks the professor

This looks a bit odd to me. I feel it should be 

Why are there less women CEOs? asks the professor 

or 

Why there are less women CEOs? asks the professor 

Can you please suggest a better way to handle such headlines?

Thanks,

Jhumur D

My reply to Jhumur:

This headline from that website is indeed odd and, even worse, grammatically and syntactically wrong:

Why are there less women CEOs, asks the professor

Your first suggested alternative construction is grammatically and syntactically correct:

Why are there less women CEOs? asks the professor 

It properly deploys the question mark where it should be—right after the question without quotes and not after the attribution.

This second suggested construction of yours is grammatically flawed, however, for it puts a question mark after a question constructed as a declarative statement:

Why there are less women CEOs? asks the professor

For the above headline to be grammatically correct and more elegant sounding, the attribution should be positioned ahead of the declarative form of the question and the question mark dispensed with, as follows:

Professor asks why there are less women CEOs

To dramatize the question, of course, we can also restructure the above headline as follows:

Professor asks: Why are there less women CEOs?

Take your pick from the last two constructions above.

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How the sense of “until” differs from that of “when”

Feedback e-mailed by Kyriacos from Cyprus (December 26, 2011):

I have started reading your articles and I find them an excellent tool to smooth out the rough edges of my English. However, I would like to comment on your article in the link below, since I think you have misunderstood the doctor’s using the conjunction “until.” Your comment that the doctor used the conjunction “until” to mean “up to the time that,” is exactly what the doctor meant. My understanding is that the doctor tried to say that we should keep our guards up until the epidemic subsides. 

Please also correct my writing above to help me improve my English! 

“When media permits a grammatically flawed official statement to see print”

Regards,
Kyriacos

My reply to Kyriacos:

Thank you for the compliment about my essays that have been posted in the Forum.

In that essay you are referring to, the doctor was quoted by the news story as follows: “The best time to prevent bird flu is now. Until the cases are low, let us stay ahead of the epidemic.”

I commented that the conjunction “until” was misused in that statement to mean “up to the time that.” “Until,” which means “up to the time that” or “up to such time as,” denotes the duration of a specific action, as in “The conference continued until past noon,” or the completion of an action leading to or resulting in a certain condition, as in “The woman talked and talked until she lost her voice.” Note that in both these two senses of “until,” two active verbs—“continued” and “talked and talked”—are working in tandem with “until.” 

In the doctor’s statement, however, “until” is dysfunctional in “until the cases are low” because (1) this phrase is being used in the sense of the lowness of the bird flu cases as an unchanged prevailing condition, and (2) there’s only the linking verb “is” and no active verb at all in the phrase.” The conjunction that correctly denotes the sense intended by the doctor is “while,” meaning “during the time that” or “in the interim that,” as in “While the cases are low, let us stay ahead of the epidemic.” This means that the doctor is saying that to forestall a bird flu epidemic, foreign-aid organizations should take proactive action against it “while the cases are low,” not “until the cases are low.” 

This sense is, of course, different from the meaning that arose when the doctor used “until” instead in the phrase “until the cases are low”—a wrong sense that led to your understanding “that the doctor tried to say that we should keep our guards up until the epidemic subsides.”

As to your English, Kyriacos, I think you are doing very well with its grammar and usage. Notice that I have posted the text of your e-mail practically verbatim, except for the comma that I inserted after the phrase “comment on your article” in the second sentence of your note.

I also noticed that you aren’t registered as a Forum member yet. Why not register now so you can directly post your question and comments in the Forum’s discussion boards?

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Distinctions between euphemistic terms for people with disability

Feedback from Miss Mae, Forum member (December 20, 2011):

This could not be as important as the death toll in Northern Mindanao lately, but I would like to know the proper term to use:

A few days ago, a Filipino entertainment personality explained earnestly that the correct label for a certain sector in our society is “differently abled.” But Daniel S. Hamermesh, author of the book Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful, prefers to call this sector “looks-challenged” (“How society favors the beautiful in practically all aspects of life”). Are “differently abled” and “looks-challenged” better terms than “person with disability,” the term used in the law on disabled persons that was signed some two years ago?

My reply to Miss Mae:

The three terms you are asking about don’t refer to the same thing. The term “looks-challenged” used by Daniel S. Hamermesh, author of Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful, is a euphemism for “the ugly” or “the unbeautiful.” It doesn’t refer in any way to people with a physical disability or “the physically disabled,” the legal terminology for which is, as you pointed out, “person with disability.” On the other hand, the term “differently abled” used by that Filipino entertainment personality you cited is the politically correct 1990s euphemism for “the disabled.”

Says the online Urban Dictionary about the term “differently abled”: “Contrary to what the words may suggest, ‘differently abled’ does NOT mean ‘having different abilities;’ more precisely it means ‘lacking expected abilities.’ Since mental disability is generally associated with much more social stigma than physical disability (and hence is ripe for being described by a ‘sensitive’ PC vocabulary), ‘differently abled’ is most frequently encountered in similar contexts as ‘special.’ With this in mind, persons of non-retarded status should construe the phrase as a deep insult.”

This being the case, I think there’s really no basis for determining which of the three terms—“looks-challenged,” “person with disability, and “differently abled”—is better. They are just euphemisms used by polite society in place of their judgmental, often unpleasant-to-hear equivalents.

Rejoinder from Miss Mae (December 21, 2011):

But since the Magna Charta for Disabled Persons favored the term “persons with disabilities,” shouldn’t we stick to it?

My reply to Miss Mae:

Language can’t be legislated; it’s organic and just evolves. What’s acceptable usage today may become anathema next year or the years after.

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When could a writer start a sentence with a “but”?

Question from Miss Mae, Forum member (December 11, 2011):

Sir, when could a writer start a sentence with a “but”?

My reply to Miss Mae:

When can a writer start a sentence with the word “but”?

My answer is anytime “but” is appropriate, and so long as it’s not overused. You see, “but” is a very versatile word that can serve in any of five ways—as a conjunction, a preposition, an adverb, a pronoun, and even a noun.

For instance, you can start a short-story with a “but” functioning as a preposition in the sense of “except,” as in this example:

“But for a tiny little smudge in the hem, Cynthia’s dress was spotlessly clean. No one would have thought that it came from the jet of blood from her unfaithful lover’s temple after she shot him pointblank…”

A dialogue can also start with “but” if need be, as in the following example where it’s used in the sense of “isn’t it that”:

“But you told me you loved only me,” Fred’s girlfriend reprimanded him the other night. “So who’s this girl you were seen kissing at the park last Sunday?”

“Calm down, Karen,” he replied. “That girl was Nona, a first cousin of mine that I hadn’t seen for years.”

Those two usages of “but” are, of course, distinct from that in the following sentence where “but” serves as a conjunction in the sense of “notwithstanding”:

“We invited him but he declined our invitation.”

In this case, it’s obvious that the “but”-clause can’t be positioned up front.

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What does “has” have to do with the verb’s past tense?

Question by Miss Mae, Forum member (November 30, 2011):

I thought I already understood the concept.

But yesterday, I was confounded again that it took a friend to point out a grammatical mistake I had just committed.

What does “has” have to do with the past form of the verb “make”? I originally constructed the sentence below with “made” only:

“Being a quadriparetic has made me forget things, even those that are important.”

My reply to Miss Mae:

The following sentence of yours uses the verb “made” in the simple past tense:

“Being a quadriparetic* made me forget things, even those that are important.”

Here, the speaker’s use of the past tense indicates that his or her forgetfulness was a condition in the past that’s no longer subsisting.

On the other hand, the following sentence that uses the form “has made” is in the present perfect tense:

“Being a quadriparetic has made me forget things, even those that are important.”

When a speaker declares something in the present perfect, it means that the condition being described—forgetting things, in this case—has continued up to the point of speaking, but the condition might have ceased thereafter. 

If the condition of forgetfulness has been subsisting from the past till the present without respite, meaning that it’s a permanent condition, the present tense will apply:

“Being a quadriparetic makes me forget things, even those that are important.”
----------------
*Quadriparesis is the medical term for weakness of all four limbs, both arms and both legs, as for example from muscular dystrophy.

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Why redefine “rule of law” at this late stage of the game?

Reader Leoncio Contreras e-mailed me the excerpt below from the November 20, 2011 Philippine Daily Inquirer column of UP sociology professor Randy David entitled “Rule of law and public esteem.” Mr. Contreras headlined the e-mail “‘Rule of Law’ is a misnomer. The more accurate phrase would be ‘Rule According to Law’” accompanied by this note: “From my favorite columnist, Randy David on his PDI column Nov. 19. Thought of you having already read the whole article, the opening I like most. Sharing with you.”

The excerpt from Randy David’s column (italicization mine):

Being neither a lawyer nor a sociologist nor a political scientist, I’m inclined to comment only as a student of language with respect to Mr. Randy David’s very strong assertion that “rule of law” is a misnomer and that the more accurate phrase for it would be “rule according to law.”

I really can’t see the point in Mr. David’s wanting to change the public perception of the sense of the term “rule of law” at this time that it appears to be under heavy assault. From what I can gather, “rule of law” is a well-established concept in jurisprudence whose linguistic accuracy is beyond cavil. 

Here’s a definition of “rule of law” that I found in BusinessDictionary.com:

I also found that “rule of law” as a concept and as a principle is duly recognized and embraced by the United Nations, as we can see in the following declaration by the UN:

Based on this well-established and widely recognized meaning and character of the phrase “rule of law,” I really can’t see the wisdom and propriety of declaring that term “a misnomer” at this particularly tumultuous time in our national life. That seems to me akin to a cavalier rejection of “rule of law” as the lay public and the rest of the democratic world have always known and embraced it; indeed, it looks like a veritable attempt to change the rules of the game right in the middle of the game.

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The appropriate tense for two past actions in a paragraph

Question by Miss Mae, Forum member (November 18, 2011):

What tense do we use for two past actions specified in two sentences in a paragraph?

“She herself attested to this. She (penned/had penned) an executive order creating a private-public initiative to promote health tourism.”

My reply to Miss Mae:

The two past actions in the two sentences above evidently didn’t happen simultaneously. The attestation was done after the penning of the executive order. The later action should then be in the simple past tense, and the action before it should be in the past perfect tense, as follows:

“She herself attested to this. She had penned an executive order creating a private-public initiative to promote health tourism.”

Here are two other ways of constructing such sentences in the past perfect:

1. By directly attributing the earlier action as a statement of the subject:
“She herself attested to this, saying she had penned an executive order creating a private-public initiative to promote health tourism.” 

2. By introducing the past perfect element as a relative “that”-clause: 
“She herself attested that she had penned an executive order creating a private-public initiative to promote health tourism.” 

However, if the time of occurrence of the later action is specified, say “in July,” that action takes the past tense as well:

“She herself attested to this. She penned an executive order in July creating a private-public initiative to promote health tourism.”

“She herself attested to this, saying she penned an executive order in July creating a private-public initiative to promote health tourism.”

“She herself attested that she penned an executive order in July creating a private-public initiative to promote health tourism.”

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The importance of pronouncing English names correctly

I couldn’t resist sharing with Forum members the following very interesting and instructive exchange of views by e-mail between Filipino-Americans or Filipino expatriates in the United States about the pronunciation of English names. I was copy furnished the discussion thread by FN, a Forum member based in the US.

To protect their privacy, I have redacted the names of the principals in this very candid conversation. 

Listen:

From: FilAm #1
To: FilAm #2   
Cc: FN
Date: Saturday, November 5, 2011 4:46 AM

By the way, my niece’s daughter goes to a Catholic private school in Pinas and recently they talked about Warren Buffett. My niece’s daughter pronounced “Buffett” the way you pronounce Jimmy Buffett’s last name (that’s the guy who made famous the song “Margaritaville” and other tropical songs), which is the correct way of pronouncing Warren’s last name, too. My niece’s daughter’s teacher corrected her pronunciation and said the correct way to say Buffett’s name is “boo-fay.” LOL...

From: FilAm #2
To: FilAm #1
Cc: FN 
Date: Sunday, November 6, 2011, 2:04 AM

I think that “boo fay” is spelled differently, i.e., only one “t” unlike Warren’s last name.

From: FilAm #1 
To: FilAm #2
Cc: FN
Sent: Saturday, November 5, 2011 7:12 PM

Exactly! The teacher is dumber than the student...hehe...and she’s supposedly a UP grad 

From: FilAm #2 
To: FilAm #1   
Cc: FN
Date: Sunday, November 6, 2011, 2:19 AM

The teacher is dumber with respect to the correct pronunciation of Buffett’s name. He/she is probably smarter in other areas.

About a year ago I went to the library to borrow a book on Warren Buffett. I asked the librarian to look it up for me in the library catalog. She could not find it on her first try, i.e., the inquiry brought up nothing. We discovered that it was because she misspelled Buffett, putting in only one “t.” I was not aware it had two “Ts” either....we were both dumb on the spelling of Warren Buffett’s last name.

So I can’t be too hard on the UP grad teacher. 

From: FilAm #1
To: FilAm #2
Cc: FN
Date: Sunday, November 6, 2011, 2:59 AM

I agree. However, my niece’s daughter has a few more stories about her with respect to other mispronounced words, erroneous grammar, and wrong answers to test questions. As for the Warren Buffett misspelling, I have always known it to be spelled with double F’s and double T’s because I’m a fan of Jimmy Buffett  ...But going back to that teacher, you would think that if she planned to talk about Warren Buffett in class she would be a little more prepared by looking up the “Buffett” pronunciation. Or maybe that’s just me. I do it all the time when I see words and names that are new to me or ones that can be read in different ways. Dictionary.com is not even that hard to remember to listen to [for the] correct pronunciation of words. In her defense, the teacher is a fresh graduate. By the way, my niece’s daughter and her classmates are all aged 10. And when she mispronounced Buffett’s name, every one of those 10-year olds looked at each other, then either shrugged or snickered...like they were shocked that she made that error. Maybe she should be more versed with current events more or watch CNN or the local versions of NBC’s “The Today Show.” Again, in her defense, if she just watches our local TV news programs only, then she is bound to mispronounce names and words. I have detected so many of those while watching LIVE programs on TV when I was there. I’d like to apply for a job at these big networks just so I can correct their pronunciations. I’ll charge them P100 per word corrected...hehe

From: FilAm #2
To: FilAm #1
Cc: FN
Date: Saturday, November 5, 2011, 11:35 PM

By the way, I’m in no way putting down UP grads. People who mispronounce English words in Pinas come from all schools. The ones most familiar to me are students from Ateneo because they are the ones who go to our cybercafe. If you hear some of them speak, you’d cringe. I do not mean to offend anyone who is a graduate of any of these schools. But if you say anything bad about UST grads, you are dead to me...JUST KIDDING! I was schooled in a public high school... I passed the UP entrance exam. However, they did not have the course that I wanted to study so I was forced to enroll at UST. I should have opted for Mapua. I wish I did! 

From: FN
To: FilAm #1, FilAm #2
Date: November 8, 2011 12:42 A.M.
Bcc: Others

First of all, I have great respect for UP as an educational institution and for its alumni as much as I have great respect for ANY college graduate who graduated from somewhere else. It is unfortunate, however, that I came across a few UP grads who always found it necessary to make it a point that they are UP grads. 

I once courted a girl from UP and I did not find her extraordinarily different from other level-headed people who graduated from other schools. I also met a few other UP grads who are, on the other hand, quite pompous, but I found nothing extraordinary about their general knowledge based on their conversations or in their e-mail postings.

My point? 

Again, I think about that poet on some island off Europe who said centuries ago that a rose by any name smells just as sweet. 

UP, West Point, UST, PMA, Harvard, etc... Who the heck cares where you graduated from? As long as you know that Austria is not Australia or as long as you know that the law of supply and demand was not authored by some idiot in Congress, etc... then you don’t have to blow your horn...

Ayam bold to sey dat bekos - er, kasi po hindi ako nag gradwit pram UP... boo, hoo...    hibik, hibik... sour grapes, if you will... 

Pero, on secon tot,    !

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Simple sentences need not be simple in construction

Question from Sky, Forum member (November 2, 2011):

Are the sentences below examples of a simple sentence?

1. “During the Great Depression of 1930s, the Sydney Harbor Bridge was built.”

2. “The Sydney Harbor Bridge was built during the Great Depression of 1930s.”

Do we have a topic here about the four basic sentence types? That would be an amazing help.

Thanks!

My reply to Sky:

Yes, even if their construction doesn’t seem to be simple, these two sentences that you presented are actually simple sentences:

(1) “The Sydney Harbor Bridge was built during the Great Depression of the 1930s.”
(2) “During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Sydney Harbor Bridge was built.”

Sentence 2 is, of course, simply the inverted version of Sentence 1; it puts the modifying phrase “during the Great Depression of the 1930s” ahead of the clause “the Sydney Harbor Bridge was built.” Either way, however, the meaning of the statement remains the same.

But I’m sure that the question that nags you and a lot of other people is this: How could those two sentences be simple when, in fact, their common clause, “the Sydney Harbor Bridge was built,” has a phrase attached to it? Doesn’t that added grammatical element make the sentence other than simple?

Well, the answer is no. That attachment is only a prepositional phrase acting as a modifier; without an active verb of its own, “during the Great Depression of the 1930s” doesn’t qualify as a dependent or subordinate clause. You will recall that by definition, a simple sentence has only one independent clause and no dependent or subordinate clauses whatsoever. When one or more dependent clauses are attached to a main clause, the sentence ceases to be simple. It becomes a compound sentence, complex sentence, or compound-complex sentence depending on the grammatical and logical relationship between the main clause and those clauses.

In reply to your last question,  “Lesson #5 – Constructing the English Sentence” in the Forum identifies the basic grammatical structures, namely the various types of phrases and clauses, that are used to form sentences. For an intensive discussion of the various kinds of sentences and their construction, though, I suggest you check out my book Give Your English the Winning Edge. It devotes seven sections to the construction of sentences in English, including how to combine and link ideas and establish their logical relationships.

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What are the specific conditions for making sentences elliptical?

Question from Miss Mae, Forum member (October 25, 2011):

I still can’t get over with your grammatical prescription on formulating words. (“When is less more and when is more less?”)

You’re right, though. I had confused an elliptical construction from a writer's obligation to keep sentences brief and effective. But I still have to ask: Should there be a condition where elliptical sentences can be?

From the lead of a lifestyle article: “Having an entrepreneurial spirit is normally the first step but finding the perfect type of business that will suit you can often be the crucial factor in determining success in business.”

Could I rewrite that to: “Having an entrepreneurial spirit is normally the first step in determining success in business but finding the perfect type [of business] that will suit you can often be the crucial factor.”

My reply to Miss Mae:

There definitely are specific conditions for making a sentence elliptical, the objective of which is to streamline the sentence by dropping repetitive words and phrases without changing its meaning or undermining its structural integrity. The ellipsis takes it for granted that the reader would just mentally fill in the gaps with the missing grammatical elements.

As a rule, elliptical sentences consist of two independent clauses, one containing the grammar elements the other has left out. The independent clause with the missing elements is the elliptical clause—an abbreviated adverb clause stripped of its subject and verb.

There are six common forms of elliptical sentences: (1) the routine omission of “that” in modifying clauses, particularly in spoken English; (2) elliptical noun phrases; (3) ellipsis of the verb and its objects or complements; (4) medial or middle ellipsis; (5) ellipsis of clause; (6) ellipsis when words are left out in comparisons using “that” or “as.” These elliptical forms are discussed in “The virtue of elliptical constructions,” a two-part essay that I originally wrote for my English-usage in The Manila Times in 2005. You can check out the essays by clicking this link to “Deconstructing and understanding those puzzling elliptical sentences,” which I posted in the Forum last August.

Now, regarding this lead of a lifestyle article, “Having an entrepreneurial spirit is normally the first step but finding the perfect type of business that will suit you can often be the crucial factor in determining success in business,” you asked if it could be rewritten elliptically as follows:

“Having an entrepreneurial spirit is normally the first step in determining success in business but finding the perfect type [of business] that will suit you can often be the crucial factor.”

No, I don’t think the above sentence is a successful elliptical construction. Dropping the words “of business” in the second coordinate clause only fragmented the sentence rather than streamline it. This is because the noun phrase “perfect type of business” in the second clause is actually different from—and not a repetition of—the earlier phrase “success in business” in the first cause. So, when the words “of business” are dropped from the noun phrase “perfect type of business,” it’s no longer clear what the description “perfect type” is referring to. The meaning of the sentence is therefore seriously altered—a clear indication that the attempt to make it elliptical has not succeeded.

I am sure that after you’ve gone over and internalized the six common elliptical constructions discussed in the essay I referred to above, you’d soon become very adept at constructing elliptical sentences.

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Confused, grammatically flawed sentence about a fallen dictator

Question from jonathanvaldez, Forum member (October 24, 2011):

Hi Joe,

Is this sentence, from an article titled “How Qaddafi Reshaped Africa” in the online edition of The Atlantic, grammatically correct?

“Of the three North African countries at the heart of the popular uprisings that have riveted the world over the last several weeks, Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi has always done the most to assert his country's African identity, staking its prestige, its riches and his own personal influence above all on its place in the continent.”

The way its author Howard French wrote it, shouldn’t the subject be “Libya” instead of “Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi”?

Thanks for you comments.

Jonathan

My reply to jonathanvaldez:

The following sentence from The Atlantic’s online edition is confused and grammatically flawed—with a serious case of a dangling modifier being made to illogically modify a wrong subject:

“Of the three North African countries at the heart of the popular uprisings that have riveted the world over the last several weeks, Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi has always done the most to assert his country’s African identity, staking its prestige, its riches and his own personal influence above all on its place in the continent.”

But no, its subject shouldn’t be “Libya” but “Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi.” The architecture of that sentence tells us that “Muammar Qadaffi,” not “Libya,” is what it wants to talk about. But the problem is that its author Howard French—or the editors of The Atlantic—mistook the possessive form “Libya’s” as the subject of that front-end modifying phrase. Sad to say, even professional writers and editors fall for this treacherous grammar error—thinking that the “apostrophe-s” possessive form remains a noun instead of the adjective that it has become. The fact is that in the possessive form “Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi,” the subject is “Muammar Qaddafi” and the word “Libya’s” is just a modifier, no longer able to function as a subject or object. 

So shall we now fix that sentence by doing major grammatical surgery on both the front-end modifying phrase and the main clause? This, understandably, is what a conscientious writer or editor would immediately think of doing when he or she finds something terribly wrong with a sentence. But the surprising thing is this: that troubled sentence from The Atlantic doesn’t need any major restructuring at all. Indeed, the culprit that caused all that trouble is just one ill-chosen word—the preposition “of” that starts off that front-end modifying phrase. 

See what happens when we replace that “of” with “in”:

“In the three North African countries at the heart of the popular uprisings that have riveted the world over the last several weeks, Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi has always done the most to assert his country’s African identity, staking its prestige, its riches and his own personal influence above all on its place in the continent.”

With “in” introducing it, that front-end phrase properly becomes a modifier indicating location of the subject “Muammar Qaddafi” rather than an attribute or description of the proper noun “Libya,” which was the faulty sense created by the improper use of the preposition “of” in the original sentence. 

The moral of the story here is, of course, that we should be judicious in using prepositions. Despite their unprepossessing size and heft, they can make an astoundingly breathtaking semantic difference in what a sentence says or fails to say.

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Are grammarians losing the battle in the real world?

Question by Sphinx, new Forum member (October 19, 2011):

Hello again, sir,

Are grammarians losing the battle in the real world? Please note these ubiquitous expressions:

1. “Everybody is welcome to join, but must wait their turn”?
2. “Avail our credit facilities”!  
3. “Just between you and I”?  

We are hearing these phrases on TV, radios and reading them on billboards!

My reply to Sphinx:

“Are grammarians losing the battle in the real world?”

I really have no firm basis for categorically answering this question, so I won’t venture a yes or no. All I’m confident of saying is that the efforts of grammarians notwithstanding, we happen to live in a country that’s so lax and so permissive in its use of spoken language, whether English or Filipino or any of the regional languages. How do they say it in the lingua franca? “Maskipops!”, or short for “Maski papano!” or, in English, “Whichever way!” 

It won’t be so bad if the language misuse is confined to private conversations and other face-to-face forms of social interaction. But as Sphinx points out in dismay, this anarchic use of spoken language soon becomes common fare on TV and radio, whether coming from the mouths of anchors or commentators or from endorsers of product advertising. The bad usage is therefore broadcast over the airwaves nationwide—and in some cases worldwide—and unwittingly acquired by the listening public. 

The three specific violations of English cited by Sphinx are serious enough, of course, but they are really as nothing compared to the much more outrageous instant coinage of Taglish or Engalog dished out by broadcast media—particularly radio—day in and day out. All we need to do is to take a 30-minute taxi ride in Metro Manila to involuntarily hear those language atrocities from the taxi driver’s favorite radio stations. 

The proper use of language can’t be imposed or legislated, though, and I doubt if the Philippine Senate or House of Representatives will ever find it worthwhile to investigate language misuse in aid of legislation. So all we can really do is to point out bad grammar or usage when it’s committed and then show how it might be corrected, one word or phrase or clause or sentence at a time. All we can really do is to hope that in the long run, the correct usage will catch on somehow.

Let’s begin with the three ubiquitous expressions cited by Sphinx:

1. “Everybody is welcome to join, but must wait their turn.”

The sentence above (a) shows the classic disagreement between the grammatically plural “their” and the grammatically singular indefinite pronoun “everybody” as its antecedent; and (b) uses the grammatically erroneous phrase “must wait their turn.”

A usual fix for Problem 1a is to pluralize “everybody” by replacing it with “all.” For Problem 1b, the grammatically correct phrasing is “must wait for their turn” or “must await their turn.”

That sentence should therefore be constructed as follows:

“All are welcome to join, but must wait for their turn.”
or
“All are welcome to join, but must await their turn.”

The following constructions using the “his or her” alternative can also be used, but it has the drawback of needlessly putting the gender issue into play:

“Everybody is welcome to join, but must wait for his or her turn.”
or
“Everybody is welcome to join, but must await his or her turn.”

Click this link for a an essay of mine discussing “The grammar of indefinite pronouns.”

2. “Avail our credit facilities”

The scrupulously correct construction of the above phrase is

“avail yourself/yourselves of our credit facilities”

where the reflexive “yourself” or “yourself” is used because “avail” is being used as an intransitive verb in the sense of “to take advantage of.” An acceptable alternative construction drops the reflexive “yourself” or “yourself” but retains the preposition “of,” as follows:

“avail of our credit facilities”

It’s grammatically wrong to also drop “of.”

For a discussion of the reflexives, click this link to “Use the reflexive form when the verb’s object is the doer itself.”

3. “Just between you and I”

The grammatically correct usage is

“Just between you and me”

where the objective pronoun “me” is used instead of the subjective pronoun “I” so it can match the case of the objective pronoun “you.” In English, there’s a grammar rule that pronouns can be compounded—added to one another—only if they are in the same case. 

For a comprehensive discussion of case, click this link to “Lesson #3 – The Matter of Case in English.”

So, to Sphinx, if we keep up this process of identifying grammar errors and correcting them as they come, who knows that grammarians might not just win the battle in the real world after all?

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The proper use of the relative pronouns “which” and “that”

Question by Sky, Forum member (October 21, 2011):

Can we use either “which” or “that” in the two sentences below?

(1) “Apple Inc. is an American computer hardware and software company (that/which) produces Apple desktop computers, the MacBook and iPhone mobile phones.”

(2) “Apple Inc. is a public company (that/which) is listed on the NSSDAQ.

I would prefer “that” in Item 1 and “which” in Item 2, but I just do not know the rules governing them.

Thanks!

My reply to Sky:

The relative pronouns “which” or “that” can be used in the two sentences below depending on the English standard used by the writer or speaker.

American English prescribes “that” to indicate that the relative modifying clause is a restrictive one, as follows:

(1) “Apple Inc. is an American computer hardware and software company that produces Apple desktop computers, the MacBook and iPhone mobile phones.

(2) “Apple Inc. is a public company that is listed on the NSSDAQ.”

On the other hand, British English prescribes “which” to introduce a relative modifying clause regardless of whether it is restrictive or nonrestrictive, as follows:

(1) “Apple Inc. is an American computer hardware and software company which produces Apple desktop computers, the MacBook and iPhone mobile phones.

(2) “Apple Inc. is a public company which is listed on the NSSDAQ.”

Recall that in English, a restrictive or defining relative clause provides essential information to the main clause of a sentence, while a nonrestrictive or nondefining relative clause provides information not essential to the idea or context of the main clause. American English observes this distinction by using the relative pronoun “that” for restrictive clauses and “which” for nonrestrictive ones.

For a detailed discussion of the American English usage of “who,” “that,” and “which” to link the two types of relative clauses, click the indicated links to the following essays of mine posted earlier in the Forum:

Getting to know the relative clauses better - Part I

Getting to know the relative clauses better - Part II

Getting to know the relative clauses better - Part III

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The proper order of the verb and the adverb in sentences

Question by Miss Mae, Forum member (October 12, 2011):

I couldn’t make heads or tails of this sentence: “It also has oriented its staff to assist this kind of patients.”

When I wrote that sentence last week, I thought that the verb should come ahead of the adverb “also.” But when I typed the sentence down, it occurred to me that “also” should come first instead. When I read it yesterday, however, it seemed that the verb should really come first. Then, rereading it today, I changed my mind again.

What should really be the order of the verb and the adverb in that sentence?

My reply to Miss Mae:

The order of the verb and the adverb in sentences like the following depends on the meaning intended by the writer:

(1) “It also has oriented its staff to assist this kind of patients.”

That sentence, with the adverb “also” ahead of the verb “has oriented,” means that the subject “it”—presumably a hospital—has done one or more things for other entities other than just orienting its staff to provide the indicated assistance.

Now let’s see what happens when the adverb comes between the verbal auxiliary “has” and the main verb “oriented”:

(2) “It has also oriented its staff to assist this kind of patients.”

This time, the meaning is that the hospital did one or more things to or for its staff other than just orienting them to provide the indicated assistance; except for its staff, there are no other entities for which the hospital has undertaken some other activity.

We must keep in mind that the adverb “also” is arguably one of the most versatile and slippery words in the English language. In that sentence, in particular, it could take the following other positions to denote other intended meanings:

(3) “Also, it has oriented its staff to assist this kind of patients.”
(4) “It has oriented its staff also to assist this kind of patients.”
(5) “It has oriented its staff to also assist this kind of patients.” 

Sentence 3 means that the hospital has asked its staff to provide the indicated assistance in addition to doing other work or activities.

Sentence 4 means the same things as Sentence 3. 

Sentence 5 means that the hospital asked its staff to also extend the indicated assistance to the kind of patients referred to.

When positioning “also,” we need to be alert to these semantic differences to be sure that our sentences will yield the precise meaning we want them to convey.

Feedback from franksteve311, new Forum member (October 14, 2011):

Adverbs of certainty go before the main verb but after the verb “to be”:

“He definitely left the house this morning.”
“He is probably in the park.”

With other auxiliary verb, these adverbs go between the auxiliary and the main verb:

“He has certainly forgotten the meeting.”
“He will probably remember tomorrow.”

My comments on franksteve311’s feedback:

Franksteve311, would you reconsider your grammar prescriptions in the light of the observations below about adverb placements?

1. It doesn’t look like adverbs of certainty should always go before the main verb:

“He definitely left the house this morning.”
“He left the house this morning, definitely.”

2. And it doesn’t look like adverbs of certainty should always come after the verb “to be” (“is,” “are,” “was,” “were,” “will be”):

“He is probably in the park.”
“He probably is in the park.”
“Probably he is in the park.”
“He is in the park probably.”

The four sentences above mean practically the same, only with different levels of emphasis. 

3. Finally, with other auxiliary verbs, it doesn’t look like those adverbs should always go between the auxiliary and the main verb: 

“He has certainly forgotten the meeting.”
“He certainly has forgotten the meeting.”
“Certainly, he has forgotten the meeting.”
***
“He will probably remember tomorrow.”
“He probably will remember tomorrow.”
“Probably, he will remember tomorrow.”

As in the alternative adverb placements in Item 2 above, the two sets of sentences above mean practically the same, only with different levels of emphasis.

So you might have made your grammar prescriptions too generalized and too restrictive. 

What do you think?

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