A few days ago, I received this e-mail from a reader of my English-usage column in The Manila Times:

Here’s my open reply to the letter:

Dear Euclid,

To speak fluent and convincing English, you need at least four major attributes: a good grasp of English (and by this I mean its vocabulary, grammar, semantics, and structure), logical and clear thinking, good pronunciation, and confidence and empathy with your audience.

It takes years to develop all of these attributes, and those still sorely deficient in most of them by the time they finish college don’t stand a chance at all of landing an English-language call center job. A clear, demonstrable command of spoken English is a must for this job, so all things being equal, applicants who don’t meet this criterion can’t hope to compete with the thousands who have already cultivated their spoken English to a high level. They may possess the intelligence and native charm to impress people in their regional tongue, but if their spoken English is way below par, it would be much better for them to pursue occupations that don’t give too much premium to good spoken English.

It’s true that through my English-usage column, I aim to help people improve their written English, but I would like to emphasize that there’s a whole world of difference between being able to write good English and being able to speak like a good native English speaker. Writing and speaking are two different disciplines, and I’m afraid I can only teach the former. Good writers aren’t necessarily good speakers, and good speakers aren’t necessarily good writers. In fact, it’s an open secret that there are many excellent English-language writers and editors who speak dreadful English, as there are many excellent English-language lecturers, public officials, and TV talk-show hosts who can hardly write a coherent English paragraph, much less a cohesive English exposition.   

As to logical thinking and clarity of thought, Euclid, I fear that these are such in short supply these days. People allow too much politics, ideology, religious fanaticism, and superstition to bend and twist their thinking into such ludicrous shapes. Scores of people getting crushed to death in a TV show stampede? Blame the current national leadership for the grinding poverty that had desperately made those people want to get rich quick by participating in that TV show. A huge chunk of a denuded moun­tainside collapsing to bury a whole village and most of its population? Blame the current national leadership, the rain, or the people themselves for perhaps forgetting to pray the night before for the absolution of their sins. I just hope that you aren’t one of the legions of our people who have been rendered largely incapable of rational thinking by their social milieu, because if you are, Euclid, even impeccable English won’t land you a job in a call center or in any other job that needs clear, straight thinking to produce the desired results.

Good English pronunciation is, of course, something you learn from good English speakers as role models and from years of practice, practice, practice. Only these can eliminate the flaws and gaps in your articulation and build your confidence when addressing an audience. But frankly, Euclid, if you still have serious doubts about your pronunciation up to now, forget that call center job. By dint of hard work you may ultimately achieve passable English diction, but by then your regional accent would have already clung to your tongue and vocal chords so tenaciously that there’d be no hope for you to sound like a native English speaker ever. (February 27, 2006)
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*Euclid Paraiso is a pseudonym of the letter writer, who at the time of the writing of this letter lived in San Pedro, Laguna.

From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, February 27, 2006 © 2006 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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Part I:

A reader from India, Jhumur D., has raised a very interesting question by e-mail about the proper use of the tenses in indirectly quoted or paraphrased statements:

“I came across your articles through Google and since then have been its regular reader. We all know that the past tense should be used for indirect narration if the verb [in the attribution] is in the past tense, except for universally true facts. But these days I regularly see the opposite. Can you please explain why this sentence from a reputable news agency doesn’t follow the grammar rule?

“It should have been ‘was in preliminary talks.’”

Offhand, my answer is that the news agency is correct in using the present tense in the sentence in question. To understand why this is so, however, we first have to review the basics of how written English normally handles quotations and attributions.

We all know that when the exact words of a speaker are quoted, those words should be duly set off by quotation marks. The attribution is then provided either before or after the statement, but depending on the writer’s judgment, it may also be placed within the quoted statement whenever appropriate:

No matter where the attribution is placed in such quoted statements, the statement retains the exact words and the tense of the verbs used by the speaker. We are not at liberty to change anything in what was actually said.

The quoted material presented by Jhumur is something different, however. It has been paraphrased; in other words, it doesn’t use the speaker’s exact words. In print journalism, this practice is indicated by doing away with the quotation marks that normally set off quoted material from its attribution.

Now, when quotation marks are dropped in this manner, there could be confusion as to which tense should control the time framework of the whole sentence—that of the attribution, or that of the quoted paraphrased material. This is why when using paraphrased quoted statements, many news service agencies as well as newspapers and magazines follow the so-called sequence of tenses rule.

Under this rule, when the attribution comes after or within that statement, the tenses in the quoted statement are retained. This is why the quoted paraphrased statement presented by Jhumur uses the present-tense “is in preliminary talks” instead of the past-tense “was in preliminary talks.” On the other hand, when the attribution comes ahead of the paraphrased quoted statement, the tense of the attribution acquires control over the tenses in the rest of the statement.

The tenses used in the original verbatim statement will then change as follows:

(1) The present tense becomes past tense (“is”/”are” to “was”/”were”). For instance, if a beauty contest winner tells the news reporter these exact words, “I am overwhelmed,” the reporter would write it as follows: She said [that] she was overwhelmed.

(2) The future tense becomes conditional (“will” to “would”). For instance, if an irate beauty contest loser tells the reporter these exact words, “I will appeal the judges’ decision,” the reporter would write it as follows: She said [that] she would appeal the judges’ decision.

(3) The past tense becomes past perfect (“was”/”were” to “had been”), except when the time element is indicated. For instance, if a beauty contest chair tells the newspaper reporter these exact words, “We were scandalized by the loser’s complaint,” the reporter would write it as follows: She said [that] they had been scandalized by the loser’s complaint. However, the past tense is retained when the time element of the action in the quoted material is given: She said [that] they were scandalized when the loser filed a complaint yesterday.

(4) The future perfect becomes conditional (“will have + past participle” to “would have + past participle”). For instance, if the beauty contest chair tells the newspaper reporter these exact words, “I will have to review the scores first before deciding,” the reporter would write it as follows: She said she would have to evaluate the scores first before deciding.

Some publications don’t follow this rule, however. Instead, they use the so-called exceptional sequence rule, which generally retains the tense used in the original quotation no matter where the attribution is placed in the quoted paraphrased material.

We will discuss this other rule in detail in the next column. (December 20, 2005)

Part II:

We saw in the preceding essay that when quoted statements are paraphrased or don’t use the speaker’s exact words, the convention in written English is to drop the quotation marks that set off the quoted material from its attribution, after which the traditional sequence of tenses rule determines the tense of the verbs in the paraphrased quoted material.

This rule is easy to apply when the attribution comes after or within the paraphrased quoted statement. For instance, if a political analyst tells a newspaper reporter these exact words, “Some senators are vehemently against changing the Constitution and I think they’ll fight tooth and nail to defeat the proposed amendments,” the reporter might make a quoted paraphrase in either of two ways:

When the attribution comes ahead of the paraphrased quoted statement, however, the tense of the attribution gains control over the tenses in the paraphrase, and the sequence of tenses rule is then applied as follows: present tense becomes past tense, future tense becomes conditional, past tense becomes past perfect, present perfect becomes past perfect, and future perfect becomes future conditional.

Thus, in the earlier example, the quoted paraphrase will change the tenses in the verbatim quotation this way:

As previously pointed out, many news service agencies, newspapers, and magazines use the sequence of tenses rule for paraphrased quoted statements, but others consider this rule confusing and misleading. They prefer to use the exceptional sequence rule, which generally retains the tense used in the speaker’s exact words no matter where the attribution falls in the paraphrased quoted material. The example given earlier will thus be rendered in this paraphrased quoted form: The political analyst said [that] several senators are strongly opposed to charter change and will fight it in every possible way.

Proponents of the exceptional sequence rule argue that paraphrased quoted statements formed by using it are clearer and more logical and immediate than those formed by using the traditional sequence of tenses rule. True enough, by not having to change the tenses in paraphrased quoted statements, the exceptional sequence rule eliminates a procedure that can sometimes confuse even the writers themselves and possibly mislead the reader.

We can better appreciate the relative virtues of the two rules by applying each to a statement about a situation that doesn’t change so quickly. Assume, for instance, that a provincial governor told a reporter these exact words yesterday: “I have a green card but I don’t intend to live in the U.S. upon my retirement.” A quoted paraphrase of this verbatim statement using the traditional sequence of tenses rule will change its tense from present to past:

 In contrast, a quoted paraphrase using the exceptional sequence rule will retain the present tense:

We must be aware, though, that even under the exceptional sequence rule, some situations arise in which changing the tense of the verbatim quoted material becomes absolutely necessary. For instance, assume that a city mayor told a reporter of a daily newspaper these exact words yesterday: “I am not feeling well so I will not attend the party caucus tonight.”

In a news report for today’s papers, the following paraphrased quoted statement using the exceptional sequence rule will no longer hold logically:

This is because by the time the report is read, the city mayor might have already gotten well and might have even attended the party caucus eventually. Thus, there’s no choice but to use the past tense, as in the case of the sequence of tenses rule:

Indeed, no matter what rule we use in writing paraphrased quoted statements, we must reflect in a logical way the effect of the passage of time between the utterance of the quoted statement and its being read in the printed form. (December 26, 2005)
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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, December 20 and 26, 2005 © 2005 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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