Precisely what’s so special about “at the end of the day” and “at this point in time” that probably one out of four Philippine legislators and public officials and probably the same ratio of TV talk-show hosts, news anchors, and guests are mouthing them much too often and with so much relish these days?

Nothing really. “At the end of the day” is simply a longer, flamboyant way of saying “ultimately,” “in the end,” or “after all,” while “at this point in time” is similarly a longer, flamboyant way of saying “now” and “currently.” And these two adverbial phrases—old-time gram­marians call them “ablative abso­lutes”—aren’t really meant to call attention to themselves. Like such modifiers as “clearly” and “defi­nitely,” they are designed simply to call attention to a point being made by the speaker, so they need to be used very sparingly to avoid irritating the listener or reader.

What’s very disturbing, however, is that many people think that liberally spicing their talk with these expressions is a sign of wis­dom, discernment, and sophisti­cation. Little do they know that on the contrary, “at the end of the day” and “at this point in time” have for several years now been condemned as the two most irritating clichés in the English language.

In a survey conducted in 70 countries in 2004 by the London-based Plain English Campaign, in particular, “at the end of the day” ranked first and “at this moment in time” (a variation of “at this point in time”) ranked second among the most hated English clichés world­wide. As the group’s spokesman so aptly observed when the rankings of the most irritating clichés were announced, “Using these terms in daily business is about as pro­fessional as wearing a novelty tie or having a wacky ring-tone on your phone. When readers or listeners come across these tired ex­pressions, they start tuning out and completely miss the message—assuming there is one.”

Again, in 2005, in a poll of 150 senior executives all throughout corporate America by the tem­porary staffing company Accountemps, “at the end of the day” ranked first among the 15 most annoying clichés.

Finally, in 2006, in a poll of 10,000 news sources that included 1,600 American newspapers, the Australian-based database com-pany Factiva found “at the end of the day” at the top of the 55 most overused English clichés. But this is only the tip of the iceberg, to use a cliché, for that poll did not cover the US broadcast media where the overuse of “at the end of the day” is decidedly much more pro­nounced.

If “at the end of the day” and “at this point in time” have indeed become such dreadful banes to the English language, why is it that they are now enjoying such wide currency in the Philippines? They have become such pernicious semantic crutches for so many public officials, media people, and students, and their dependency level is such that they may no longer be able to speak their minds without overusing those two clichés.

I suspect that not so far back, a highly influential public figure either in government, media, or academe must have triggered this domestic overuse of “at the end of the day” and “at this point in time.” Perhaps he or she must have used these two clichés much too often during a major event that was covered live by all of the local TV networks, thus setting such a wrongheaded example for English-savvy speech for audiences all over the land.

It no longer matters who that culprit was, but there’s no doubt that we are now in the midst of an “at the end of the day” and “at this point in time” pan­demic, and the only way to stop it is for all of us to totally retire these damaged semantic goods from our writing and speech—right now. (December 22, 2007)

From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, December 22, 2007, © 2007 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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As every nonnative English learner soon discovers upon acquiring an adequate grasp of the language, many common English expressions don’t have the same meanings as those of their individual words. For instance, the verbal phrase “to ask (someone) over” means to invite someone to come and not to ask that person a question, and the noun phrase “finding a needle in a haystack” means a very difficult task and has nothing to do with actual needles and haystacks. In short, English is highly idiomatic—it often doesn’t mean exactly what it says—so it isn’t enough to simply learn how to string any of its estimated 625,000 words into grammatically and structurally correct sentences. The learner also needs to patiently find out the idioms or implicit meanings built by native English speakers into particular combinations of those words, then be able to use those particular idioms with confidence when the occasion calls for them.

Indeed, acquiring the estimated 20,000-25,000 words needed to be adequately proficient in English is child’s play compared to learning its more than 24,000 idioms. To sound natural when speaking or writing in English, or to be able to read English text well or to listen to spoken English with ease, the serious learner must know at least a sizable number of these idioms, which make so much of the language a dizzying labyrinth of hidden meanings. Not to do so will make the learner forever an outsider to the language, no matter how extensive his or her vocabulary or sentence-making skill becomes.

Idioms are of two basic types: transparent, those whose meanings can often be inferred from their constituent words, and opaque, those whose meanings aren’t as easily apparent. For instance, the idiom “lend a hand (to someone)” is transparent because it’s easily understood to mean to help someone; “walking on thin ice,” which means acting dangerously, is similarly transparent because its imagery can be easily associated with danger. But such an idiomatic expression as “to be wet behind the ears” (inexperienced) is opaque because its motivation or origin isn’t apparent on its face. Some idioms, of course, may fall in-between transparent and opaque, such as “keep a straight face” (pretend to be innocent) and “blow off steam” (release pent-up emotions).

English idioms take any of four grammatical forms: adjective phrases, noun phrases, prepositional phrases, and verb phrases.

An adjective phrase idiom is any phrase that modifies a noun or pronoun in a nonliteral way, like “head over heels” (smitten) in the sentence “Paris fell head over heels in love with Helen, triggering a ruinous war,” and “on a roll” (having great success) in “The partners are on a roll in their franchised business.”

A noun phrase idiom is one whose lead word is a noun or pronoun that often comes with a set of modifiers. Typical examples are the idiom “a straw in the wind” (unlikely) in “His winning was a straw in the wind because his opponent had a stronger political machinery,” and the idiom “a square peg in a round hole” (misfit) in “As the feuding family’s arbiter, the veteran prosecutor was a square peg in a round hole.”

A prepositional idiom is one made up of a preposition, its object, and any modifier that comes after them, as the expressions “in the bag” (certain) and “in the nick of time” (a final critical moment), as in “The candidate thought his victory was already in the bag, but the election results proved him wrong” and “As always in Hollywood adventure movies, the hero saves damsel or village in mortal peril just in the nick of time.”

Finally, a verb phrase idiom—otherwise know as a phrasal verb idiom—is an expression whose meaning differs from that of its verb, as “put off” (postpone) and the following three “face” idioms: “face off” (compete), “face up to” (admit responsibility), and “face the music” (deal with an unpleasant situation). I’ll no longer give examples of their usage as I’m sure they are already part of most everybody’s conversational repertoire.

No matter what grammatical form they take, idioms make their component words transcend their dictionary meanings, and every new idiom learned brings the learner in closer touch with the heart and sinew of the English language. (February, 2 2007)

From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, February 2, 2007, © 2007 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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