Jose Carillo's Forum

BADLY WRITTEN, BADLY SPOKEN

This page seeks to promote good English usage in everyday life—whether at home, at school, in the workplace, in public platforms, in the mass media, in books, and anywhere else where the printed or spoken word is used. In short, this page will serve as some sort of grammar police against blatant or grievous public misuses of English.

So, whenever you encounter such misuse, share it through this page in the spirit of constructive criticism. Our ultimate goal, of course, is to bring the misuse to the attention of those responsible so they can make the necessary correction.

You can report the English misuse by e-mailing a verbatim transcription or an image in GIF or JPEG format to jcarilloforum@gmail.com. When doing so, please be mindful of the laws against libel and oral defamation. Our interest is not to humiliate English-language offenders but to help them rectify the error, so there’s no need to identify them in your messages. Just indicate the city, district, street, and general location where you saw or found the particular English misuse to make it easier for those concerned to be alerted about it.

We will also need your full name, residence, e-mail address, and telephone number so we can confirm with you before the posting is made on this page. Just let us know if you don’t want to be identified in the posting so we can withhold your identity. Please keep in mind that this page will be moderated and will not entertain scurrilous reports nor those sent in by anonymous sources.

That said, you can now get started in doing volunteer police work for the sake of good English! It should be a truly gratifying educational experience and you and other English lovers can have lots of fun besides!

THIS WEEK'S FEATURE:

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Click to enlarge

WHY FIGHT THE WRONG ENEMY?

Cha-yi of Makati City sent me the above photo early this evening with the message below it:

Dear Mr. Carillo,

I found this on the clothing rack of Bench at Cash and Carry Mall in Makati.
I can’t make sense of it, can you?

Here’s my open reply to Cha-yi:

I’m dumbfounded myself by the language of that promo label. There’s obviously something terribly wrong with its grammar and semantics, but I’m not making any comment at the moment. I think it would be very instructive if members of the Forum can send in their individual critiques so we can thoroughly discuss the problem.

What’s worse is that is that the promo label in question appears to be not just local to that supermarket where you saw it. My wife tells me that it’s also being used in several department stores and in the company’s other retail outlets. How could such a big blunder happen?

Once the individual critiques by Forum members are in, I’ll prepare a consolidated critique that we can send to the clothing company. I’m sure the company would want to thresh out this matter with its advertising agency soonest.

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Page last modified: 02 January, 2010, 12:15 a.m.