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Grammar errors so basic media shouldn’t be making them anymore

Until this weekend, I came across no spectacular misuses of English in the four major Metro Manila broadsheets. All I found are the following lapses in basic English grammar in their respective issues today (March 5)—errors so elementary that professional reporters and editors worth their salt really shouldn’t be making them anymore:

(1) Philippine Star: Wrong use of the present perfect

The lead sentence of the news story above misuses the present perfect tense. This is because the phrase “the other day” provides a precise time of occurrence for the verb “have proposed.” By definition, of course, the present perfect doesn’t need a precise time of occurrence; the action of the verb is completed with respect to the present, but precisely when isn’t specified, as in this sentence: “The foreign student has taken the TOEFL.” In the sentence in question, therefore, the phrase “the other day” nullifies the present-perfect and makes the sentence grammatically wrong.

That time of occurrence should then be dropped to make the perfect-tense construction correct, as follows:

“Two Mindanao congressmen have proposed the appropriation of an additional P1.7 billion for the 111 state universities and colleges (SUCs) throughout the country.”

Since the precise time of occurrence is specified in the original lead sentence, however, the simple past is the correct tense to use here:

“Two Mindanao congressmen the other day proposed the appropriation of an additional P1.7 billion for the 111 state universities and colleges (SUCs) throughout the country.”

(2) The Manila Times: Use of the wrong conditional form

The lead sentence of the news story uses the wrong form for the conditional. The correct form is not “should + object of the verb + is + operative verb” but “should + object of the verb + be + operative verb” instead. That sentence should therefore read as follows:

“Human rights victims could be millionaires should the alleged $65-million ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family be transferred to the coffers of the government, lawyer Rod Domingo said on Friday.”

Of course, using the linking verb “is” would be correct if the sentence is converted to the “if”-conditional form instead, as follows:

“Human rights victims could be millionaires if the alleged $65-million ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family is transferred to the coffers of the government, lawyer Rod Domingo said on Friday.”

(3) Manila Bulletin: Use of wrong verb and verb tense

In the lead sentence above, the subordinate clause “after they have been employed by three bus companies” uses a wrong verb and yields the wrong sense. The verb “employed” and its use in the present-perfect form “have been employed” are both grammatically erroneous because they convey the wrong sense that the employment of the lady drivers has ended with respect to the present. That correct sense would emerge if the verb “hired” in the present perfect is used instead. This is because the hirings were very recent one-time acts of the employers with no specific time of occurrence;; employment, on the other hand, is a continuing act that subsists until employment ends or is terminated, which isn’t the sense intended here.

Another serious problem with the lead sentence is its flawed semantics. It wrongly conveys the sense that each of the 13 TESDA-certified lady drivers has been hired and is currently employed by the three bus companies. The correct sense is, of course, that the three bus companies made a total of 13 hires from among the TESDA-certified lady drivers, with each of these drivers working for only one bus company.

To rectify all of the grammatical and semantic problems pointed out above, that problematic lead sentence needs a major overhaul like the one I propose below:

“A total of 13 Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA)-certified lady drivers have been hired by three bus companies and are now preparing to hit the busy highways of the metropolis as full-fledged bus drivers.”

(4) The Manila Times and Manila Bulletin: Grammatically flawed rewrites of apparently the same press release

The Manila Times version:

In the lead sentence of the news story above, the phrase “joined legislators in eyeing to stop the volunteer nursing training program” is a grammatically faulty mélange. The progressive-tense verb “eyeing” is, of course, correctly used to mean “contemplating” or “considering,” but it is grammatically awkward if not outright faulty to use the  infinitive phrase “to stop the volunteer nursing training program” as its direct object. A much better, smoother way is to convert that infinitive phrase into the noun phrase “the stoppage of the nursing training program,” a form more suitable for serving as a direct object.  

Also, the absence of the subordinating conjunction “that” before the subordinate clause “allegedly exploited by numerous private and government medical institutions” makes its linkage with the main clause unclear and rickety, thus obscuring the intended meaning of the sentence. For sentence clarity, it would be much better to convert that restrictive subordinate clause into a nonrestrictive one introduced by the relative pronoun “which.” This will also give much-needed pause and breathing space for the reader when reading that rather long sentence.

Then, in the second sentence of the lead passage, the phrase “to put as priority the House Bill 767” is both grammatically wrong and awkwardly worded. The correct, straightforward way to say it is “to give priority to House Bill 767.”

Here then is that problematic two-paragraph passage as corrected:

“Three of the largest organizations of nurses in the Philippines joined legislators in eyeing the stoppage of the volunteer nursing training program, which is allegedly being exploited by numerous private and government medical institutions.

“During a roundtable conference at the House of Representatives on Wednesday, the Nars ng Bayan, Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) and Ang Nars issued an appeal to the leadership of the Lower Congress to give priority to House Bill 767, which seeks to stop both private and government hospitals and other medical institutions from recruiting nurses to volunteer in medical and nursing training programs without payment of salaries and allowances under the prevailing rates of their profession.”

The Manila Bulletin version:

In the lead sentence of the news story above, the phrase “the continued government inaction to demands for an end to the volunteer nursing training program” is grammatically faulty and awkwardly worded. The correct preposition to link the noun “inaction” to “demands” is “on,” not “to,” and the phrase “for an end to the volunteer nursing training program” is better and more concisely worded as “to end the volunteer nursing training program.”

Also, the subordinate clause of that lead paragraph suffers from the same grammatical problem and awkward wording as those of the version of The Manila Times. I would therefore use the same grammatical fix I suggested for the corrected Times version.

So here’s that problematic first paragraph of the Manila Bulletin version as corrected:

“Three of the largest organizations of nurses in the country joined congressmen in assailing the continued government inaction on demands to end the volunteer nursing training program, which is allegedly being exploited by nearly all private and government medical institutions.”

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