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MY MEDIA ENGLISH WATCH

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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.

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Five encounters with faulty English of the hardcore type

Except for what a Forum reader had so aptly described as “epic fails,” a few of which I have seen fit to critique in My Media English Watch (you can check out my previous postings about them), the four major Metro Manila broadsheets have been doing quite well in their English grammar and usage in recent weeks.

These past few days, in fact, all I could find in their major news and feature stories are faulty English of the hardcore type—meaning incorrect usage so deeply ingrained in the English of some editors and writers that readers can often sportingly predict their appearance.

Consider the following five instances of these recurrent faulty English usage:

(1) Philippine Star: Misuse of the subjective relative pronoun “who”

Kidnapped Marawi teacher, coed freed

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines  – Armed men have freed unharmed an Islamic school teacher and a university coed who they had held captive for nearly a week, in a village in Lanao del Sur, a military official said.

Lt. Col. Randolf Cabangbang, spokesman of the Armed Forces’ Western Mindanao Command, said kidnap victims Aubrey Virtudez, 19, an information technology student at the Mindanao State University (MSU), and Neil Cris Gulfan, 24, faculty staffer of the Al-Khawirizmi International College in Marawi City, were released at around 5:30 p.m. Thursday in Barangay Piagapo.

The lead sentence of the news story above incorrectly uses the relative pronoun “who” to introduce the subordinate clause “they had held captive for nearly a week.” The correct relative pronoun for that construction is “whom,” so that sentence should read as follows:

“Armed men have freed unharmed an Islamic school teacher and a university coed whom they had held captive for nearly a week, in a village in Lanao del Sur, a military official said.”

The usage of relative modifying clauses admittedly confounds most entry-level English-language learners, but I think it’s not too much to expect professional editors and reporters to already know the difference between the subjective “who” and the objective “whom” like the back of their hands.

The thing to keep in mind is that the subjective “who” is used to introduce a subordinate modifying clause that modifies a noun in the main (independent) clause, and this “who” also functions as the subject of the subordinate clause. Consider this sentence: “Police are searching for a witness who has been missing for two weeks now.” Here, the relative subordinate clause “who has been missing for two weeks now” modifies the noun “witness” in the main clause, and the “who” in the subordinate clause also functions as the subject of this subordinate clause.

In contrast, the objective “whom” is used to introduce a subordinate modifying clause that modifies the direct object of the operative verb in the main clause, and this “whom” also functions as the direct object of the verb in the subordinate clause. Take this sentence: “The pirates ultimately killed the sailors whom they had kept in captivity for a month.” Here, the relative subordinate clause “whom they had kept in captivity for a month” modifies the noun “sailor” (which is the direct object of the verb “killed” in the main clause), and the relative pronoun “whom” that introduces the subordinate clause also functions as the direct object of the verb phrase “had kept in captivity” in the subordinate clause.

Clearly, in the lead sentence of the news story above, the relative subordinate clause “who they had held captive for nearly a week” is modifying the noun “university coed,” which is also the direct object of the verb “had held captive” in the subordinate clause. The relative pronoun “who” therefore couldn’t be the correct relative pronoun to introduce that subordinate clause; it should be the relative pronoun “whom” instead.

(2) Philippine Daily Inquirer: Dangling modifying phrase

5 security guards in P1-M payroll robbery attempt arrested

Alert Manila policemen arrested on Thursday five security guards who robbed a manpower service employee of P1 million in payroll money using a toy gun and a revolver.

Operatives of the Manila Police District’s (MPD) Meisic Station 11 Gandara police community precinct (PCP) also recovered the stolen cash from Noel Germino, a security guard of the Safeguard Security Agency and alleged leader of the robbery group, and Centennial Guard Force Inc. guards Jerry Muldes, Elmer Amosco, Rexer Pomeragos and Ronnel Desoloc.

In the lead sentence above, the phrase “using a toy gun and a revolver” is a dangling modifying phrase. It can’t logically modify any of the nouns proximate to it—not “payroll money,” not “P1 million,” not “manpower service employee.” In fact, it should logically modify “five security guards,” but the noun phrase is 19 words away for the modification to take hold properly.

To prevent that modifying phrase from dangling, it has to be moved as close as possible to the noun it’s supposed to modify. Here’s a quick way to do it:

“Alert Manila policemen arrested on Thursday five security guards who, using a toy gun and a revolver, robbed a manpower service employee of P1 million in payroll money.”

Another way that’s neater and more streamlined:

“Alert Manila policemen arrested on Thursday five security guards who used a toy gun and a revolver to rob a manpower service employee of P1 million in payroll money.”

In both of the above reconstructions, it’s crystal clear that it was the five errant security guards who used the toy gun and the revolver.

(3) Philippine Star: Misplaced modifier

Ex-mayor convicted over permit  

MANILA, Philippines - For refusing to issue a business permit for a variety store, the Sandiganbayan has sentenced a former mayor of Masantol, Pampanga to a maximum of 10 years in jail.

The anti-graft court’s Fourth Division also perpetually barred former Masantol mayor Corazon Lacap from holding public office for violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

The lead sentence of the news story above has seriously misplaced the modifying prepositional phrase “for refusing to issue a business permit for a variety store.” Its bad positioning gives the absurd impression that it modifies the noun “Sandiganbayan” instead. Logically, of course, it should modify the noun phrase “mayor of Masantol, Pampanga.”

One quick fix for that misplaced modifier is to use the passive voice for the main clause “Sandiganbayan has sentenced a former mayor of Masantol, Pampanga to a maximum of 10 years in jail.” This way, the noun phrase “a former mayor of Masantol, Pampanga” can move closer to the modifying phrase that it’s supposed to modify, thus effectively solving the modifier misplacement problem:

For refusing to issue a business permit for a variety store, a former mayor of Masantol, Pampanga, has been sentenced by the Sandiganbayan to a maximum of 10 years in jail.”

A neater fix is to simply transfer the modifying prepositional phrase to the tail end of the sentence. Proper modification can then be achieved without disturbing the existing sentence structure and without changing the mood of the sentence from active to passive:

“The Sandiganbayan has sentenced a former mayor of Masantol, Pampanga, to a maximum of 10 years in jail for refusing to issue a business permit for a variety store.”

(4) Manila Bulletin: Highly convoluted sentence construction      

Cultural Convergence and the ‘Age of Can-Do’

MANILA, Philippines - What does a group of indigenous musicians from Bukidnon; the country’s oldest living kulintang maker from Maguindanao; rap artists hailing from the Tondo gangs; a percussionist using recycled materials and Filipino Martial Arts; a group of bare-chested, tattooed neo-tribal rock performers;  a group of theater actors; and the country’s premier soprano have in common?

Probably nothing, at first glance, if one focuses only on their respective genres and their forms of expression. However, a closer look at each of these artists shows a passion for the arts and for their individual cultural influences that flows out through their respective genres and onto the audiences they serve.

How did you find the lead sentence above on first or second or third reading? Disjointed? Confusing? Rambling? Almost incomprehensible?

In my case, it was all of the above, and I must admit that I understood what that sentence wanted to say only when I finally reached its tail end—and by then my patience had worn so thin that I wanted to give up reading that story altogether. You must have felt the same way with that sentence and wondered why.

Let me tell you why: That sentence is an extreme example of a construction where the operative verb phrase is not only splintered but is also positioned very far from its subject—a distance of as many as 49 words, in fact. The result is a very weak and flimsy grammatical and semantic connection between subject and verb.

The subject of that sentence is, of course, the interrogative pronoun ”what,” and the verb form that has been splintered is “does… have in common” (I have provided the ellipsis to represent the distance of 49 words between “does” and “have in common”). Along with the wide separation of the verb from its subject, this serious splintering of the operative verb phrase makes it insufferably difficult for the reader to make sense of that sentence.

For optimal sentence comprehension, the general rule is to position the verb as close as possible to its subject or to the doer of the action; the closer they are to each other, the stronger the grammatical interlock between them. Here’s how we can apply this rule to make that very confusing sentence easier to understand:

“What could these artists possibly have in common—an indigenous group of musicians from Bukidnon,  a kulintang maker from Maguindanao who happens to be the country’s oldest, a rap artist group consisting of former Tondo gang members, a percussionist using recycled materials and Filipino martial arts, a group of neo-tribal rock performers, a group of theater actors, and the country’s premier soprano?

“Probably nothing, at first glance, if one focuses only on their respective genres and their forms of expression. However, a closer look at each of these artists would show a passion for the arts and for their individual cultural influences that flows out through their respective genres and onto the audiences they serve.”

The above rewrite is still iffy and it obviously needs more polishing (particularly the second paragraph with its very fuzzy semantics), but I think you’ll agree that it’s much easier to understand than the original version. This is the virtue of putting the subject and operative verb of a sentence as close as possible to each other.

(5) Philippine Daily Inquirer: Misuse of the verb “secure” for “procure” or, more simply, “get”

LTO chief tied to car theft

MANILA, Philippines—Virginia Torres, chief of the Land Transportation Office (LTO), and 25 other LTO and police personnel are facing criminal and administrative charges for allegedly facilitating the registration of stolen vehicles, the Philippine Daily Inquirer has learned.

***

The charge against Torres, a shooting range buddy of President Benigno Aquino III who appointed her LTO chief in July last year, was for violation of Article 171 of the Revised Penal Code for falsification of a document by a public officer, according to the Espina report to PNP Director General Raul Bacalzo.

The Inquirer secured a copy of the Espina report on Thursday. Phone calls to Torres on Sunday by the Inquirer were not returned although she released a statement earlier saying that the allegations against her were part of a “demolition job.”

The third paragraph of the news story passage above misuses the word “secured”—a very common word choice error among journalists in the Philippines. The verb “secure” means “to relieve from exposure to danger” or “to get lasting possession or control,” and not one of these is the intended meaning in that sentence. The correct word is “procure,” which means “to get possession of” or “obtain by particular care and effort.”

In current English usage, though, “procure” does sound heavy-handed and overstated for the sense intended by such sentences (which is probably why many reporters and editors are loath to use “procure”), so it’s much better to use the simpler verb “get,” as in the following version:

“The Inquirer got a copy of the Espina report on Thursday.”

P.S. (March 1, 2011): I almost forgot to mention that another possible alternative to “secured” in that sentence is “obtained.” Well, to use “obtained” is perfectly acceptable for the sense of that sentence, but we must keep in mind that “obtain” is a transitive verb that means “to gain or attain (something from somebody) usually by planned action or effort.” To work properly, this verb therefore normally needs a source for its direct object—in this case, the direct object is the noun phrase “a copy of the Espina report.” So, assuming that the reporter got the copy of that report from the Philippine National Police (PNP), the sentence will have to be constructed this way:

“The Inquirer obtained a copy of the Espina report from the PNP on Thursday.”

This complication, I must add, is why I’d rather that we use the much simpler “got” instead in such sentences.

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