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Semantically, people don’t get a sigh of relief; they heave it

Evidently more watchful of their English, the four major Metro Manila broadsheets were once again pleasantly free of notable grammar and usage errors during the past week. (Contributing to this welcome state of affairs was, of course, the fact that three of them didn’t come out with print editions today, Good Friday.) Indeed, all I could find worthy of being critiqued are two problematic sentences in two major stories of one of the broadsheets.

Here are those sentences with my critiques (all underlining for emphasis mine):

(1) Manila Bulletin: Unidiomatic usage (Internet edition)

In the lead sentence above, it is grammatically and semantically incorrect to say that the “motorists got a sigh of relief.” This is because the motorists were not receivers of the sighing action, which is the sense conveyed by the verb “got”; they were, in fact, the doers of that action. The correct verb that captures that sense is “heave,” which means “to utter with obvious effort or with a deep breath.”

That sentence therefore should have been phrased as follows:

“Motorists heaved a sigh of relief after the Bureau Internal Revenue (BIR) decided Wednesday afternoon to delay the collection of the 12-percent value-added tax (VAT) on toll.”

(2) Manila Bulletin: A hodgepodge of grammar errors (Internet edition)

(a) Wrong verb choice

The lead sentence here mistakes the act of “penitence” as something received; that act is, in fact, one that the penitent does himself or herself. The noun “penitence,” by definition, implies sad and humble realization of and regret for one’s misdeeds—a deeply personal thing. To say “all people who will take penitence” is therefore wrong and awkward; the correct phrasing is “people who will do public acts of penitence.” The word “public” is needed to put the acts of penitence in their correct perspective; also, the adjective “all” is redundant and is better dropped from that sentence.

A more appropriate phrasing is “people who will do public acts of penitence”; better still, “people doing public acts of penitence.”

(b) Redundancy

In the phrase “the observance of the Lenten Season,” the phrase “the observance of” is redundant; “the Lenten Season” would suffice. Using just “Lent” will be even more concise.

(c) Erroneous phrasing

The phrasing of “to take extra precautions,” while not necessarily grammatically wrong, is unidiomatic usage when followed by a modifying phrase, which in this case is “against heat stroke and dehydration…” The correct idiom is “to take extra precaution against heat stroke and dehydration…” (with the noun “precaution” in the singular form).

(d) Missing preposition

The phrase “due excessive exposure to the heat of the sun” is erroneous because the preposition “to” is missing between “due” and “excessive.” I think we can grant that this is a simply a proofreading error. Also, in the phrase “exposure to the heat of the sun,” the words “the heat of the” are redundant; “exposure to the sun” is enough to convey the desired meaning. In any case, the sentence will read better if that phrase is worded this way: “from excessive exposure to the sun” (the preposition “from” sounds better and does the job much more efficiently than “due to”).

So here’s how that sentence would look when all of the above grammar problems are corrected:

“The DoH warned people doing public acts of penitence during the Lenten Season to take extra precaution against heat stroke and dehydration from excessive exposure to the sun.”

Even more concise:

“The DoH warned people doing acts of penitence during Lent to take extra precaution against heat stroke and dehydration from excessive exposure to the sun.”

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