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Icky metaphors in photo captions and various grammar problems

Instances of faulty English were so few and far between in the four major Metro Manila broadsheets last week that I actually thought of foregoing my regular media English critiques. Both their writers and editors appeared to be keeping a much tighter watch on their grammar and usage on a sustained basis, and I must say that I’m heartened by this state of affairs. On Thursday and Friday, however, I came across a few language and grammar problems in their news stories. They are not very serious ones, mind you, but correcting them should prove instructive to Forum members and to others who take their English grammar improvement seriously.

Here are those language and grammar problems along with my comments:

(1) Philippine Daily Inquirer: Overwrought, overstated similes and metaphors 

Having been a news reporter and editor myself, I have on countless occasions written and edited photo captions for newspapers, and I know that doing them often tempts writers to overwrite and indulge in flights of profundity—an embarrassing tendency that, fortunately, astute copyeditors have every opportunity to prevent from manifesting itself in print. In the case of the caption above, however, I think poetic license has been terribly abused and logical thinking, grossly violated by the writer and condoned by the editors.

To my mind, the simile in the statement that “Metro Manila’s tall buildings seem like tombstones in the smog and early-evening fog on the eve of All Saints’ Day” is a queasy stretch of language but is nevertheless passable—and forgivable to some extent. But to further stretch the idea into a long metaphor that equates the sight of those skyscrapers to “the entombed frustrations of 8 million residents, many of whom are from the provinces and who continue to view the metropolis as a place where dreams come true” is pursuing an already flimsy and shaky idea into illogical extremes.

These questions quickly arise in the face of such a florid statement: What frustrations are the Manila residents experiencing and why and how come those frustrations were entombed? How did the writer figure out that they are the frustrations of exactly 8 million residents? What’s the relevance of majority of those residents coming from the provinces? Don’t native Manilans themselves experience the same frustrations? And how does the caption writer know that all of those Manila residents who come from the provinces “continue to view the metropolis as a place where dreams come true”? This is false omniscience that has no place in journalism.

I submit that the second sentence of that caption has violated not only the fundamental rules of caption-writing and journalism but also the bounds of meaningful language itself. It has no business being there at all. It would have been much better if that sentence had been knocked off from the caption, as we can see in the more realistic, concise, and logical version below:

“LIKE GIANT TOMBSTONES IN THE MIST. Metro Manila’s tall buildings seem like tombstones in the smog and early-evening fog on the eve of All Saints’ Day. Photo was taken by former Inquirer reporter Armand Dean Nocum from his lofty retreat at Timberland Heights in San Mateo, Rizal.”

(2) Manila Bulletin: Awkward, dysfunctional phrasing; wrong preposition usage and unhyphenated compound modifier; wrong construction of a nonrestrictive relative clause    

1. Awkward, dysfunctional phrasing: In the first sentence of the lead passage, the verb phrase “has gone full-swing road rehabilitation work” is awkwardly, dysfunctionally worded because of a missing preposition. A simple, effective fix is to insert the preposition “in” and the possessive “its” between “full-swing” and “road rehabilitation work,” as follows:
   
   “The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has gone full-swing in its road rehabilitation work in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) as part of preemptive measures to reduce the risk of disasters during the typhoon season.”
   
   Another effective fix is to use the form “put (object) in full swing,” as follows:
   
   “The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has put its road rehabilitation work in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) in full swing as part of preemptive measures to reduce the risk of disasters during the typhoon season.”

2. Wrong preposition usage and unhyphenated compound modifier: In the second sentence of the lead passage, the phrase “taking preventive measures on landslide prone areas” suffers from the use of a wrong preposition—the “on” should be “in”—and the unhyphenated compound modifier in the noun phrase “landslide prone areas”—it should be “landslide-prone areas” instead. (The absence of the hyphen makes the adjective “prone” wrong modify “areas”; putting the hyphen makes the compound modifier “landslide-prone” correctly modify “areas.)
3. Wrong construction of a nonrestrictive relative clause: Also in the second sentence of the lead passage, the relative modifying clause “which often cause inconvenience to the motoring public and hamper the delivery of agricultural crops from the farms to the nearest markets” is wrongly linked to the main clause. Being nonrestrictive or nonessential to the sentence, it should be set off from the main clause by a comma.

The whole lead passage as corrected will then read as follows:

“BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has put its road rehabilitation work in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) in full swing as part of preemptive measures to reduce the risk of disasters during the typhoon season.

“DPWH-CAR Director Edilberto Carabaccan said they will be taking preventive measures in landslide-prone areas to prevent more damages during the rainy and typhoon seasons, which often result in inconvenience to the motoring public and hamper the delivery of agricultural crops from the farms to the nearest markets.”

(3) Manila Bulletin: Unnecessary, dysfunctional use of definite article for the noun “optimism”

The first sentence in the lead passage above reads badly because of the unnecessary, dysfunctional use of definite article “the” for the noun “optimism” in the verb phrase “aired the optimism that party-list organizations may be entitled to a share of the road users’ tax.” The article “the” in “aired the optimism” has to be dropped to make the sentence read correctly, as follows:

“The chairman of the Committee on Appropriations in the House of Representatives Thursday aired optimism that party-list organizations may be entitled to a share of the road users’ tax.”

(4) The Manila Times: Missing operative verb in a subordinate clause

The subordinate clause of the first sentence in the lead passage above is grammatically and semantically fractured—and doesn’t read properly—because of the absence of an operative verb in the phrase “not to worry since all of them can be booked on the remaining hajj flights with the last plane out for Jeddah being set on November 10.” That missing verb is “need,” and inserting it before the verb phrase fixes the problem:

“The National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) has given its assurance that the remaining pilgrims who are bound to perform their hajj (pilgrimage) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, this month need not worry since all of them can be booked on the remaining hajj flights with the last plane out for Jeddah being set on November 10, according to a high official of the Muslim commission.”

(5) The Manila Times: Misplaced modifying phrase; redundant modifying phrase

1. Misplaced modifying phrase: In the first sentence of the lead passage above, the phrase “because of complaints from motorists” is a misplaced modifier. Because of its wrong position in the sentence, it is wrongly—and absurdly—modifying the phrase “while begging in the main streets of this city.” It should be moved upfront in the sentence so it can correctly modify its true subject, the noun phrase “at least 100 Badjaos from Zamboanga province,” as follows:
   
   “Because of complaints from motorists, at least 100 Badjaos from Zamboanga province were rounded up by authorities here on Thursday while they were begging in the main streets of this city.”

2. Redundant modifying phrase: In the second sentence of the lead passage, the nonrestrictive relative clause “which can become a cause of accident” is redundant and need to be dropped altogether because it needlessly repeats an idea that’s already clearly indicated by the preceding phrase “becoming a risk and some were nearly hit by vehicles.”
   
   That sentence should then read simply as follows:
   
   “These mendicants were subject of complaints by motorists because they were already becoming a risk, some of them having been nearly hit by vehicles.”

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