Jose Carillo's Forum

MY MEDIA ENGLISH WATCH

If you are a new user, click here to
read the Overview to this section

Team up with me in My Media English Watch!

I am inviting Forum members to team up with me in doing My Media English Watch. This way, we can further widen this Forum’s dragnet for bad or questionable English usage in both the print media and broadcast media, thus giving more teeth to our campaign to encourage them to continuously improve their English. All you need to do is pinpoint every serious English misuse you encounter while reading your favorite newspaper or viewing your favorite network or cable TV programs. Just tell me about the English misuse and I will do a grammar critique of it.

Read the guidelines and house rules for joining My Media English Watch!

Four very instructive problematic sentences from the broadsheets

Let’s closely examine four very instructive problematic sentences from the August 13 issues of three of the leading Metro Manila broadsheets:

(1) Philippine Daily Inquirer: Seriously flawed “if”-conditional sentence

Speaker vetoes Pacquiao’s plan to train in House

MANILA, Philippines—If Manny Pacquiao’s fights in Las Vegas can virtually empty the halls of Congress, the worse would attendance at congressional sessions be if he were to train right on the Batasan Pambansa grounds.

That is the fear of Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and that is the reason he gave yesterday for thumbing down Rep. Emmanuel Pacquiao’s plan to train at the gym of the House of Representatives for his Nov. 13 fight with Mexican Antonio Margarito.

The first sentence of the lead passage above is seriously flawed both grammatically and structurally. In fact, it exhibits even more serious problems than the conditional sentence from another broadsheet that I critiqued in this section last June 4, 2010 (“Dissecting a seriously flawed ‘real’ conditional sentence”).

The sentence in question here was meant to be constructed in the form of the so-called “first” or “real” conditional sentence, which talks of a particular real-life condition or situation in the future and the result of this condition. Real conditional sentences are meant to denote a real possibility that the expected result will happen if the condition is met, as in the following example: “If you finish your project on time, you will receive a substantial performance bonus.” Such sentences have this normal form: the “if” clause is stated in the present simple tense, is followed by a comma, then is followed by the result clause in the form “will + base form of the verb.”

The sentence in question, however, seriously deviates from that form of the real conditional sentence. Let’s examine that sentence much more closely:

“If Manny Pacquiao’s fights in Las Vegas can virtually empty the halls of Congress, the worse would attendance at congressional sessions be if he were to train right on the Batasan Pambansa grounds.”

The result clause in the sentence above is the future situation “the worse would attendance at congressional sessions be,” but the problem is that it’s improperly hemmed in by two conditional statements, the first being “if Manny Pacquiao’s fights in Las Vegas can virtually empty the halls of Congress,” and the second, “if he were to train right on the Batasan Pambansa grounds.” Such double conditionality not only violates the normal structure of a real conditional sentence but also muddles up the logical chain of causality in the statement.

Worse, the construction of the future-situation clause, “the worse would attendance at congressional sessions be,” is itself erroneous. Since it’s the outcome of a real conditional statement, it should be using the auxiliary verb “will” for the simple future tense instead of “would” for the subjunctive mood, as follows: “the worse will attendance at congressional sessions be.” Also, the verb “be” is semantically weak and inadequate for this outcome statement; replacing it with the verb “get” will make the action more forceful and the sense of the future-situation clause much clearer.

Further compounding the problems of that conditional sentence is the wrong mood used for the second conditional “if”-clause, “if he were to train right on the Batasan Pambansa grounds.” It is erroneously rendered in the subjunctive form (Click this link for my discussion of the functions of the subjunctive mood). For the sentence to be in the real conditional form, however, that “if”-clause should be rendered in the indicative mood by using the simple present tense instead: “if he trains right on the Batasan Pambansa grounds.”

Taking all of the above considerations into account, how do we now reconstruct that problematic lead sentence to make it a correct real conditional sentence?

As a first step, we need to convert the first “if”-conditional clause, “if Manny Pacquiao’s fights in Las Vegas can virtually empty the halls of Congress,” into some other grammatical form so that the sentence will have only one “if”-conditional clause. I propose to do this by converting that first “if”-conditional clause into this simple declarative clause: “Manny Pacquiao’s fights in Las Vegas can virtually empty the halls of Congress.”

Secondly, I propose to change the future-situation clause, “the worse would attendance at congressional sessions be,” into a “so”-clause, as follows: “so the worse will attendance at congressional sessions get.” To further clarify matters, I propose to render this inverted clause in its normal form: “so attendance at congressional sessions will get worse.”

And thirdly, I propose to use the indicative form of the second “if”-conditional clause as I discussed earlier .

That problematic lead sentence will then take this correct real conditional form:

“Manny Pacquiao’s fights in Las Vegas can virtually empty the halls of Congress, so the attendance at congressional sessions will get worse if he trains right on the Batasan Pambansa grounds.”

Of course, there are several other ways of correctly rendering that real conditional sentence. Here are four more for the road:

“Manny Pacquiao’s fights in Las Vegas can virtually empty the halls of Congress, so it is likely that attendance at congressional sessions will get worse if he trains right on the Batasan Pambansa grounds.”

“Since Manny Pacquiao’s fights in Las Vegas can virtually empty the halls of Congress,  attendance at congressional sessions will get worse if he trains right on the Batasan Pambansa grounds.”

“Manny Pacquiao’s fights in Las Vegas being capable of virtually emptying the halls of Congress, attendance at congressional sessions will get worse if he trains right on the Batasan Pambansa grounds.”

“Considering that Manny Pacquiao’s fights in Las Vegas can virtually empty the halls of Congress, attendance at congressional sessions will get worse if he trains right on the Batasan Pambansa grounds.”

My personal preference is the third version (the one that starts with “since”), but all of the five versions I have provided are perfectly legitimate real conditional clauses. Take your pick.

(2) Philippine Daily Inquirer: Misplaced modifying relative clause

Recto questions BIR move to round off VAT on toll

MANILA, Philippines—Sen. Ralph Recto Thursday questioned the unilateral move of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to round off the value-added tax (VAT) on toll to the nearest peso, which he said was illegal.

Revenue Commissioner Kim Jacinto-Henares, however, felt that the issue was trivial.

In the first sentence of the lead passage above, the nonrestrictive relative clause “which he said was illegal” is a misplaced modifier. It modifies the noun “peso” in the main clause instead, giving the wrong impression that the Philippine peso is no longer legal tender; of course, that clause should modify instead the referent noun “move” 20 words away. This sentence construction error is very common in news reporting, and it happens because sometimes it couldn’t be helped that a certain noun phrase would consist of so many words, thus making a relative modifying clause far detached from its referent noun in that noun phrase.    

There are two grammatical devices for effectively avoiding the misplacement of relative modifying clauses in such constructions: the resumptive modifier, and the summative modifier.

The resumptive modifier is a device that uses a key word in the main clause as the subject or theme of the relative phrases that come after it. That key word can take the form of a noun, a verb, or an adjective central to the idea of the main clause, as “woman” is in this sentence: “She was a woman of a few thoughts, a woman of a few words, a woman with not a single bit of true feeling or informed opinion in her.” Without “woman” as resumptive modifier, that sentence will likely be constructed this way: “She was a woman who only had a few thoughts, who only used a few words, and who did not have a single bit of true feeling or informed opinion in her.” As we can see, the resumptive modifier has the virtue of doing away with the sometimes unwieldy “who”-relative clauses, thus eliminating verbal sprawl and making the sentence more emphatic.

Now let’s use the resumptive modifier technique to avoid the misplacement of the relative modifying clause in this problematic sentence:

“Sen. Ralph Recto Thursday questioned the unilateral move of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to round off the value-added tax (VAT) on toll to the nearest peso, which he said was illegal.” 

The word that’s central to the idea of the main clause in that sentence is, of course, the noun “move,” so we can use it as the resumptive modifier in this reconstruction of that sentence:

“Sen. Ralph Recto Thursday questioned the unilateral move of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to round off the value-added tax (VAT) on toll to the nearest peso, a move that he said was illegal.” 

We can see that the resumptive modifier “move” has effectively converted the misplaced modifying relative clause into a properly positioned, fully functional, and more emphatic modifier.

Now, the other device for effectively avoiding the misplacement of relative modifying clauses is the summative modifier. A summative modifier introduces an altogether new word or phrase that sums up a core idea of the preceding clause, then makes that word or phrase the thematic subject of the succeeding relative clause or clauses. In other words, the summative modifier concisely recapitulates a major idea presented earlier in the sentence, and the relative clause in turn elaborates on it with new information.

In the same problematic sentence, we can use the word “decision” as the summative modifier, so that the sentence will now read as follows:

“Sen. Ralph Recto Thursday questioned the unilateral move of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to round off the value-added tax (VAT) on toll to the nearest peso, a decision that he said was illegal.”

As a rule, though, it’s semantically better to use as summative modifier a more general term than the specific one used in the main clause of the sentence. In this particular case, it’s advisable to interchange “move” and “decision” in the above construction such that “move” becomes the summative modifier: 

“Sen. Ralph Recto Thursday questioned the unilateral decision of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to round off the value-added tax (VAT) on toll to the nearest peso, a move that he said was illegal.”

And here are two more concise versions of that sentence using “move” as summative modifier:

“Sen. Ralph Recto Thursday questioned the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) unilateral decision to round off the value-added tax (VAT) on toll to the nearest peso, a move that he said was illegal.”

“Sen. Ralph Recto Thursday questioned the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) unilateral rounding off of the value-added tax (VAT) on toll to the nearest peso, a move that he said was illegal.”

(3) Manila Bulletin: Faulty elliptical construction

Mesmerizing Mati

If Palawan is the last frontier of the Philippines, Mati City is to Davao. That’s according to city administrator Richard L. Villacorte. “We don’t want to experience what had happened to other tourist destinations in the country,” he explained. “We do not only want to protect the natural treasures God has given to us but also preserve them as well.”

In the above lead paragraph, the sentence “If Palawan is the last frontier of the Philippines, Mati City is to Davao” is a grammatically erroneous, nonsensical elliptical sentence construction. By definition, an elliptical sentence knocks off certain words and phrases (often repetitive ones) from a regularly constructed sentence in a way that doesn’t change its meaning. It takes for granted that the reader or listener would just mentally fill in the gaps with the missing grammatical elements. The knocked-off words and phrases form “holes” in the sentence that are called ellipses. (As a rule, an elliptical sentence consists of two independent clauses, one containing the grammar elements the other has left out. The independent clause with the missing elements is the elliptical clause—an abbreviated adverb clause stripped of its subject and verb.)

In the sentence in question, though, it’s evident that the knocking off of words and phrases from the regularly constructed version of that sentence doesn’t result in an elliptical sentence but in a fractured sentence instead. In other words, whatever the original regular sentence construction is, it doesn’t qualify to be rendered in elliptical form in that manner.

Instead, I would suggest reconstructing that flawed sentence in the following form that clearly yields the intended comparative statement:

“If Palawan is the last frontier of the Philippines, so is Mati City the last frontier of Davao.”

(4) Philippine Star: Awkward positioning of the time of occurrence; faulty elliptical dropping of “that”; unhyphenated compound adjective; misplaced modifying relative clause; subject-verb disagreement

Pagasa warns of La Niña in coming months

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) warned yesterday the public that the La Niña phenomenon could worsen in the coming months and trigger flooding especially in the Bicol region.

Pagasa said above normal rainfall is expected over most parts of the Bicol region this month which might trigger flood, flashfloods and landslides in the area. Based on current atmospheric and oceanic conditions, recent trends and model forecasts, early stages of La Niña is likely to continue this month. It is expected to strengthen to a La Niña level through the coming months and likely to persist up to the early part of 2011, Pagasa said in its latest advisory.

  1. Awkward positioning of the time of occurrence: The first sentence of the lead passage above reads badly because of the awkward positioning of the time of occurrence of the verb’s action. The adverb “yesterday” in the phrase “warned yesterday the public” wrongly and very awkwardly receives the action of the verb “warned” instead of “public,” which is its legitimate direct object. This problem, of course, can be fixed simply by positioning “yesterday” after the noun “public” so it won’t get in the way of the verb’s action.
  2. Faulty elliptical dropping of “that”; unhyphenated compound adjective; misplaced modifying relative clause: In the second sentence, the ill-advised dropping of the subordinating conjunction “that” results in a faulty, very awkward construction. The confusion is further compounded by the unhyphenated compound adjective “above normal” that modifies the noun “rainfall,” and by the misplaced modifying clause “which might trigger flood, flashfloods and landslides in the area,” which wrongly modifies the noun “month” instead of its true referent noun “rainfall.” (The problem here is similar to the misplaced modifying relative clause from another broadsheet that I earlier critiqued in Item 2.)
  3. Subject-verb disagreement: In the second sentence of the second paragraph, the phrase “early stages of La Niña is likely” is grammatically flawed because of the absence of the article “the” before “early stages” and because of the subject-verb disagreement between the plural noun “stages” and the singular verb “is.” The correct phrasing should be “the early stages of La Niña are likely.”

So here’s that entire problematic passage as corrected:

“The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) warned the public yesterday that the La Niña phenomenon could worsen in the coming months and trigger flooding especially in the Bicol region.

Pagasa said that above-normal rainfall is expected over most parts of the Bicol region this month, a development that might trigger flood, flashfloods and landslides in the area. Based on current atmospheric and oceanic conditions, recent trends and model forecasts, the early stages of La Niña are likely to continue this month. It is expected to strengthen to a La Niña level through the coming months and likely to persist up to the early part of 2011, Pagasa said in its latest advisory.”

SHORT TAKES IN MY MEDIA ENGLISH WATCH:

(1) Philippine Star: Wordiness

Kuratong activities in Ozamiz verified

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine National Police is now in the process of verifying intelligence reports on the alleged unhampered activities of the dreaded Kuratong Baleleng group in Ozamiz City.

PNP spokesman Senior Superintendent Agrimero Cruz said the national police could not immediately act on the basis of unverified information.

In the first sentence, the phrase “in the process of” is needless verbiage. The sentence can do very well without it. Look:

“The Philippine National Police is now verifying intelligence reports on the alleged unhampered activities of the dreaded Kuratong Baleleng group in Ozamiz City.”

(2) Manila Bulletin: Use of needless phrase; use of unnecessary comma

Bulacan mining summit sorts out problems

CITY OF MALOLOS, Bulacan — In a bid to promote awareness on mining and quarry operations in Bulacan, the provincial government held Thursday its first-ever mining summit at the Hiyas Pavilion, this city.

The summit addressed the most pressing mining concerns, particularly the issuance of Executive Order No. 01-2010, temporarily suspending all mining and quarry operations in the province.

  1. Use of needless phrase: In the first sentence, the phrase “in a bid” is needless verbiage—one of those officious prepositional phrases that litter business and journalistic prose alike (“in an effort to,” “in line with”).
  2. Use of unnecessary comma: In the second sentence, the comma after the proper name “Executive Order No. 01-2010” is unnecessary and only serves to truncate the sentence.

 Here’s that lead passage as corrected: 

“CITY OF MALOLOS, Bulacan —To promote awareness on mining and quarry operations in Bulacan, the provincial government held Thursday its first-ever mining summit at the Hiyas Pavilion, this city.

“The summit addressed the most pressing mining concerns, particularly the issuance of Executive Order No. 01-2010 temporarily suspending all mining and quarry operations in the province.”

(3) Manila Bulletin: Wrong preposition usage

Vaccine drive on A (H1N1) to continue

Philippine health officials will continue its vaccination drive against Influenza A (H1N1) to high-risk groups despite the declaration of the World Health Organization (WHO) signifying the end of a pandemic.

The other day, the WHO said the globe is now moving into the post-pandemic period but the virus remains a threat to vulnerable groups such as elderly persons and pregnant women, WHO Director Margaret Chan said.

In the first sentence of the lead passage, the preposition “to” in the verb phrase “will continue its vaccination drive against Influenza A (H1N1) to high-risk groups” should be “on” instead:

“Philippine health officials will continue its vaccination drive against Influenza A (H1N1) on high-risk groups despite the declaration of the World Health Organization (WHO) signifying the end of a pandemic.”

(4) The Manila Times: Improper grammatical treatment of noun phrase

Group wants Petron to pay Guimaras victims

A militant fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) on Wednesday asked the Aquino government to compel Petron Corporation to pay a total of P20-billion compensation economic package to the 133,000 victims of Guimaras oil spill. Besides from the P20-billion compensation, Pamalakaya also asked President Benigno Aquino 3rd and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Ramon Paje to compel Petron to set aside another P20 billion for the rehabilitation of Guimaras for 10 years, or about P2 billion a year.

In the first sentence of the lead passage above, the use of the article “a” in the noun phrase “a militant fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) is grammatically erroneous. Such usage would be valid only if the proper name of the alliance, “Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya),” is set off from the sentence by commas to indicate that it is working as an appositive for “militant fisherfolk alliance,” as follows:

“A militant fisherfolk alliance, the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya), on Wednesday asked the Aquino government to compel Petron Corporation to pay a total of P20-billion compensation economic package to the 133,000 victims of Guimaras oil spill.”

Otherwise, the article “a” should be replaced by “the,” as follows:

The militant fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) on Wednesday asked the Aquino government to compel Petron Corporation to pay a total of P20-billion compensation economic package to the 133,000 victims of Guimaras oil spill.”

(5) The Manila Times: Redundancy; faulty phrasing; use of unnecessary article

Coast Guard finds body of missing passenger

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Tuesday recovered one more dead body believed to be one of the passengers of the cargo vessel—M/V Freighter that sank in the waters of Dos Hermanas Islands in Romblon.

The PCG recovered the body of Clenton Jaye Benegla, 22, in Quezon province. He is the second fatality of the accident.

The Philippine Coast Guard earlier said that the 498-ton cargo ship disappeared after it was hit by big waves and suffered from an engine trouble in Marinduque on Saturday.

  1. Redundancy; faulty phrasing: In the first sentence of the lead passage, the term “dead body” is redundant; the word “body” alone is enough. Also, the phrase “to be one of the passengers” is semantically faulty; it needs “that of” to function correctly in that sentence: “to be that of one of the passengers.”
  2. Use of unnecessary article: In the third sentence, the article “an” is unnecessary in the phrase “suffered from an engine trouble.”

So here’s that entire problematic passage as corrected:

“The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Tuesday recovered one more body believed to be that of one of the passengers of the cargo vessel M/V Freighter that sank in the waters of Dos Hermanas Islands in Romblon.

“The PCG recovered the body of Clenton Jaye Benegla, 22, in Quezon province. He is the second fatality of the accident.

“The Philippine Coast Guard earlier said that the 498-ton cargo ship disappeared after it was hit by big waves and suffered from engine trouble in Marinduque on Saturday.”

Click to post a comment to this critique

View the complete list of postings in this section




Copyright © 2010 by Aperture Web Development. All rights reserved.

Page best viewed with:

Mozilla FirefoxGoogle Chrome

Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional Valid CSS!

Page last modified: 14 August, 2010, 3:00 p.m.