Feedback e-mailed by Mr. Juanito T. Fuerte, Forum member:
Hi, Joe,
The following is the first paragraph of a news item published in today's (8/12/11) issue of The Philippine Star:
“Miss Earth 2008 Karla Paula Henry was attacked by a drunk helper at a Mandaluyong City condominium where she owns a unit yesterday morning.”
Joe, I have a strong haunch that the writer meant to say the attack took place “yesterday” although the sentence seems to associate the word with owning a condo unit. What do you think?
In the third paragraph of the same news story, the report said “Henry shouted and was heard by security guards...”
I’m not an expert in this field but, since the story didn’t say what the subject shouted for or about, would it have been more appropriate if it had used the word "screamed" in place of "shouted"?
You're the maestro, Joe. You can take it from here.
All the best,
Juanito T. Fuerte
My reply to Juanito:
You’re right in your feeling that there’s something grammatically wrong in this lead sentence from that Philippine Star news story:
“Miss Earth 2008 Karla Paula Henry was attacked by a drunk helper at a Mandaluyong City condominium where she owns a unit yesterday morning.”
The problem is what I’d call a “stranded” time of occurrence—“yesterday morning.” It got detached from the operative verb—“was attacked”—by total of 14 words, in effect making it a misplaced modifying phrase that wrongly attaches itself to the verb phrase “owns a unit.”
A simple fix for that badly constructed sentence is to bring that stranded time of occurrence as close as possible to that operative verb, as follows:
“Miss Earth 2008 Karla Paula Henry was attacked by a drunk helper yesterday morning at a Mandaluyong City condominium where she owns a unit.”
From a grammatical standpoint, an even better construction is to move that time of occurrence right beside that operative verb, as follows:
“Miss Earth 2008 Karla Paula Henry was attacked yesterday morning by a drunk helper at a Mandaluyong City condominium where she owns a unit.”
I would say that this is the optimal sentence construction for this particular situation. In terms of news immediacy, however, the journalist’s usual priority for mention in that passive-voice new lead is “subject first (“Miss Earth 2008 Karla Paula Henry”), operative verb next (“was attacked”), doer of the action next (“by a drunk helper”), and complement next (“at a Mandaluyong City condominium where she owns a unit”). The journalist’s logic here is that the doer of the action is more important than the time element, so it needs to be mentioned ahead of the latter.
This is why the first sentence reconstruction I offered above—even if the verb and doer of the action are still separated by five words (“by a drunk helper”)—is more advisable than the second version from a news immediacy standpoint.
Now, regarding this sentence from that news story: “Henry shouted and was heard by security guards...”
Of course, that news report would have been much more informative if it mentioned the exact words shouted by the assailant. However, even if that were the case, I don’t think that it would automatically warrant replacing the verb “shouted” with “screamed.” This is because the news story didn’t specify whether the victim shouted before or after the stabbing. If the former is the case, it’s possible that the shouting itself could have provoked the stabbing; if the latter is the case, the shouting could have been a pained cry for help after the victim was stabbed—and thus merit the use of the verb “screamed.” As it is, though, we simply don’t know exactly what happened based on that report, so from a semantic standpoint, I think the reporter did right by using the generic verb “shouted.”
