Jose Carillo's English Forum

MY MEDIA ENGLISH WATCH

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Draconian demands for front-page editorial excellence

Normally, front-page headline stories in the national newspapers get the most lavish editorial attention, with nitpicky copy editors and section editors and possibly the editor in chief himself or herself making doubly sure that the facts are right, the numbers are right, the context is right, the headlines and typefaces are right, and the grammar and usage in the stories are perfect in every way—from spelling and capitalizations down to the last hyphen, comma, period, and close quotes. In the days when I was a newspaperman myself, in fact, it was considered a journalistic disgrace for even a single error—no matter how minute—to get to the printed page. A wrong word or two in the inside pages was forgivable, but for the front-page headline story? You could lose your job or damage your reputation irreparably if it happened!

So how are the four major Metro Manila broadsheets these days faring against such draconian demands for editorial excellence in their front pages? Let’s take a look at the lead paragraph of the front-page headline story of each of them for their issue on the same day last week:

Newspaper A:
“The configuration of the 2010 presidential election continued to take shape, with another possible team emerging and two popular evangelists flexing muscle.”

Newspaper B:
“Even if it’s a red letter day, people from all walks of life will paint the town yellow on Friday as they pay tribute to the late former Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., who was assassinated 26 years ago while fighting for Philippine democracy.”

Newspaper C:
“MANILA, Philippines - With the rising popularity of Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, Liberal Party (LP) stalwarts are being torn between him and Sen. Manuel Roxas II in their quest for the party’s standard-bearer in the 2010 elections.”

Newspaper D:
“Malacañang apparently needed former President Fidel Ramos more than the former leader needed it—at least when the subject was the 2010 elections.”

From the looks of it, the English grammar and usage of these lead sentences are far from perfect—and the errors in some are serious enough to cause some of the editors to lose a few nights’ sleep at least.

MY CRITIQUE AND SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS:

Let’s now analyze each of the four lead sentences above and see how they can be improved.

Newspaper A:
“The configuration of the 2010 presidential election continued to take shape, with another possible team emerging and two popular evangelists flexing muscle.”

My digital Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary defines the word “configuration” as, first, the relative arrangement of parts or elements and, second, as “shape.” In other words, “configuration” is synonymous with “shape.” The main clause of that lead sentence could therefore also read as “the shape of the 2010 presidential election continued to take shape”—which means that it’s a tautology or a needless, circuitous repetition of the same idea, statement, or word.

It’s really a wonder how such an obvious tautology could crop up in the lead sentence of a story written by as many as three reporters; one would have thought that at least one of them would have noticed it and objected to it. But since this obviously didn’t happen, perhaps the section editor or the editor and chief could have blue-penciled the offending clause construction and supplied a better word than “configuration.”

This is all Monday quarterbacking, of course, so what we need to do now is figure out how to get rid of the tautology in that sentence. My first instinct is to replace “configuration” with “contour,” but a quick check with my dictionary tells me that “contour,” while a tad different in semantics, is also practically synonymous with “configuration.” Another possible word is “character,” but on second thoughts it sounds somewhat judgmental to me. (Now I can appreciate the predicament of the writers and editors when they were making their word choices for that sentence! My advantage over them, of course, is hindsight and the luxury of time.)

At any rate, I think I’ll settle for the word “makings”—it means “potentiality”—as the most semantically appropriate choice for that sentence:

“The makings of the 2010 presidential election continued to take shape, with another possible team emerging and two popular evangelists flexing muscle.”

At the very least, it gets rid of the tautology in the original sentence for good.

First things first: the compound term “red letter day” needs a hyphen between “red” and “letter.” When we do that, “red-letter day” becomes a legitimate modifier that means “of special significance.” Without that hyphen, “red letter day” becomes literal and its meaning becomes difficult to figure out.

I’m also bothered by the mixing of so many metaphors and figurative expressions in that sentence. The metaphors there are, of course, “red-letter day” and “paint the town yellow,” while the figurative expressions are “from all walks of life,” “pay tribute,” and “while fighting for Philippine democracy.” The use of “red-letter day” is perfectly acceptable usage, of course, but “paint the town yellow” as a variation of the metaphor “paint the town red” is semantically questionable. The expression “paint the town red” means “going out for a night out with lots of fun and drinking,” and the use of “red” is actually an allusion to the kind of unruly behavior that results in much blood being spilled.

Now, the writer’s unilateral changing of “red” to “yellow” in the metaphor “paint the town red” violates the three major attributes of a true idiom, which is that its words are not compositional and not substitutable and that the idiom itself is not modifiable. When we say that an idiom is not compositional, this means we can’t compose or construct an idiom from the individual meanings of its component words. When we say that the words of an idiom are not substitutable, this means that when any of its words is replaced with a related word or even a close synonym, the idiom collapses and loses its intended meaning. And when we say that an idiom is not modifiable, this means that changing the way the words of an idiom are put together or inflected alters its meaning or, worse, changes it beyond recognition. In sum, “paint the town yellow” is a false, semantically unwarranted expression that shouldn’t have been used in that lead sentence.

The figurative expressions are “from all walks of life” and “pay tribute” are perfectly acceptable usage in that lead sentence, but to say that the late former Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was assassinated 26 years ago “while fighting for Philippine democracy” is to go overboard semantically. That he did fight for Philippine democracy is beyond question, but to say that he was assassinated while in the act of doing so is too much of a stretch. It would perhaps be more prudent to simply say that he was assassinated “when he returned to the Philippines to fight for Philippine democracy.”

Overall, then, I would suggest the following reconstruction of the original lead sentence in that newspaper to make it more on the level semantically:

“It will be a red-letter day on Friday when Filipinos from all walks of life pay tribute to the late former Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., who was assassinated 26 years ago when he returned to the Philippines to fight for Philippine democracy.”

When you are “torn between” two lovers, as the old song goes, it means that you love both and couldn’t decide whom to choose. On the other hand, when you are “being torn between” two lovers, that means you are literally and physically being torn apart by some outside force between two people whom you love—and you are bound to be physically harmed in the process. That is the fundamental difference between the idiom “torn between” and the literal expression “being torn between”—the first is a figurative adjectival phrase, and the second is a literal verb phrase.

For this reason, I think that lead sentence will be much better off grammatically and semantically when shorn of the verb “being” before “torn.” Also, I think the use of the word “quest” is a little bit too subjective and melodramatic for what should be an objective news story; “choice” would be a more level-headed word.

So here’s the sentence as improved:

“MANILA, Philippines - With the rising popularity of Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, Liberal Party (LP) stalwarts are torn between him and Sen. Manuel Roxas II as their choice of party standard-bearer for the 2010 elections.”

Newspaper D:
“Malacañang apparently needed former President Fidel Ramos more than the former leader needed it—at least when the subject was the 2010 elections.”

On the face of it, there seems to be nothing grammatically wrong with this lead sentence of a headline story—until we reach the latter part that refers to the 2010 elections in the past tense. We then realize that there’s a serious disconnect or inconsistency in the use of tense between the main clause and the parenthetical that follows it.

Indeed, since the matter is still unfolding and unresolved anyway, we can make that sentence grammatically and semantically aboveboard by putting all of its verbs in the present tense. Look:

“Malacañang apparently needs former President Fidel Ramos more than the former leader needs it—at least when the subject is the 2010 elections.”

Now we can say that all four problematic lead sentences of the leading broadsheets are as grammatically and semantically excellent as we can make them.

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