When reading the newspapers, we sometimes find it extremely difficult to make sense of the lead sentence of certain news stories. Take the following lead passage of a recent news story in the
Philippine Daily Inquirer:
‘Killer’ carnival owner identified
The man whom employees have been pinpointing as the owner of a carnival in Valenzuela City where one died and nine others were injured in a freak accident involving a ride in the facility cannot be held criminally liable after all.
Senior Supt. Wilben Mayor, chief of police, told the Inquirer that based on barangay records, it was Delia Montero, and not Arnel Cudia, who was listed as the owner of the roadside carnival at the corner of MacArthur Highway and San Pablo St. in Barangay Karuhatan.
Like me, you must have found it exceedingly difficult to grasp what the lead sentence above is trying to say. If you’re still scratching your head why, let me tell you the reason: it’s because that sentence has a monster relative clause of no less than 32 words—“whom employees have been pinpointing as the owner of a carnival in Valenzuela City where one died and nine others were injured in a freak accident involving a ride in the facility—that comes between the operative verb (“cannot be held liable”) from its subject (“man”). With that huge gap between subject and operative verb, even the most attentive and focused readers could easily lose track of the grammatical connection between them.
Having been a newspaper reporter myself, I can tell you that it’s as tough writing a lead sentence like that as attempting to fathom what it means. This is a problem that often arises when the lead sentence of a news story has a subject that needs to be qualified at some length for the sentence to be understood in context, sometimes to the point of seriously muddling its syntax. Indeed, if the writer or editor doesn’t watch out, the welter of factual details could complicate the sentence almost beyond comprehension, as in the case of the relative clause we are discussing here.
Restructuring that lead sentence to make it clearer and more readable is admittedly a very tough nut to crack—nothing less than a grammatical and semantic nightmare. (Try doing the restructuring yourself to see what I mean.) In fact, after so many tries, I’ve figured out only one possible way of doing it right—to start off the sentence with the expletive “there,” as follows:
There is no way, after all, to attribute criminal liability to the man pinpointed as the owner of a Valenzuela City carnival ride that figured in a freak accident last November 9 in which one died and nine others were injured.
Senior Supt. Wilben Mayor, chief of police, told the Inquirer that based on barangay records, it was Delia Montero, and not Arnel Cudia, who was listed as the owner of the roadside carnival at the corner of MacArthur Highway and San Pablo St. in Barangay Karuhatan.
Having offered the above rewrite of the lead sentence, I must say for the record that the expletive “there” is actually looked upon with great disfavor by many grammarians. They consider it a needless, undesirable grammatical device that must be avoided in the interest of good English. (Click this link to an earlier discussion in the Forum of this problem,
“Long noun forms make sentences exasperatingly difficult to grasp.”)
I agree that for simplicity and conciseness, it’s generally advisable to recast sentences to get rid of the expletive “there,” as in the following less complicated construction:
Using the expletive “there”: “
There are eight applicants who have already applied for the college scholarships offered by the charitable foundation.”
Without the expletive “there”: “
Eight applicants have already applied for the college scholarships offered by the charitable foundation.”
In the case of the problematic lead sentence we are discussing here, however, I submit that the version using the expletive “there” does a much better, clearer, and readable job than the original sentence. Let’s go over that rewritten lead sentence again for good measure:
“There is no way, after all, to attribute criminal liability to the man pinpointed as the owner of a Valenzuela City carnival ride that figured in a freak accident last November 9 in which one died and nine others were injured.”
No matter how biased or averse we might be to using the expletive “there,” there’s no denying that it has made the original lead sentence much clearer and much more readable. For this reason, perhaps news writers and editors should not altogether discount the expletive “there” option in writing the news. It just might do wonders to their syntactically troubled sentences when everything else fails.
SHORT TAKES FOR MY MEDIA ENGLISH WATCH:(1) The Philippine Star: Unparallel phrase construction; use of wrong pronoun Foreigners warned vs fake marriages
MANILA, Philippines – The Bureau of Immigration (BI) warned foreigners against resorting to fake marriages and use it as a ploy to acquire a visa in the Philippines.
Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. issued the warning after BI agents arrested an Indian national who falsified his application for a five-year temporary resident visa by submitting fraudulent documents.
The lead sentence above reads badly. This is because of its unparallel phrase construction that results from compounding (adding) the gerund phrase “resorting to fake marriages” and the bare infinitive phrase “use it as a ploy.” The basic rule in parallel construction is that all sentence elements in a serial list should have a parallel structure, meaning that the elements being compounded or added should all be noun forms, verb forms, infinitive phrases, gerund phrases, or participial phrases, whichever is most appropriate. When we allow any of the elements to take a different form, the rhythm of the enumeration is broken and the reader’s train of thought is needlessly disrupted. (Click this link to a discussion in the forum of
“Using parallelism to achieve structural balance in writing.”)
In that lead sentence, therefore, for the bare infinitive phrase “use it as a ploy” to be parallel with the gerund phrase “resorting to fake marriages,” it should be converted to its equivalent gerund phrase, “using it as a ploy.”
Another problem with that lead sentence is that it misuses the singular-form pronoun “it.” Since the antecedent of this pronoun is clearly the plural noun “fake marriages,” it should take the plural-form “them” instead.
That lead sentence should then be corrected to read as follows:
“The Bureau of Immigration (BI)
warned foreigners against resorting to fake marriages and using them as a ploy to acquire a visa in the Philippines.”
(2) Manila Bulletin: Nonsensical premise of a sentence; misuse of the preposition “as”; wrong use of the present perfect tenseAlbay bags national tourism awards
MANILA, Philippines -- Albay has once more proven that there’s more to Mayon’s perfect cone as it recently bagged a series of national awards in tourism, governance and disaster preparedness.
The province won two Best Tourism Practices Awards at the national convention of the Association of Tourism Officers of the Philippines (ATOP) held in Roxas City.
The Mayon 360 Degrees Ultra Marathon, an extreme sports adventure event, got First Place in the Best Tourism Event: Sports/Wellness Category Provincial Level.
The lead sentence above makes the nonsensical premise that “Albay has once more proven that there’s more to Mayon’s perfect cone.” Indeed, why does Albay need to prove that there’s more to Mayon’s perfect cone, and why must it need to prove whatever that is again and again? It doesn't make sense.
Then that sentence misused the conjunction “as” in the sense of “because”; the correct preposition for evoking the intended “cause and effect” sense of that sentence is “when.” Also, the sentence misused the present perfect tense; since “recently” was specified as the time referent for the action, the proper tense for the main clause is the simple past tense “once more proved,” not the present perfect “has once more proven.”
Here’s how that lead sentence will read as corrected:
“
Albay once more proved that there’s more to the province than Mayon Volcano when it recently bagged a series of national awards in tourism, governance and disaster preparedness.”
The logic of that sentence may still be doubtful (the comparison it makes doesn’t seem right to me), but at least it’s grammatically perfect now.
(3) Manila Bulletin: Wrong choice of wordTurtles hurt Candaba fishing industry
CANDABA, Pampanga, Philippines – Fishpond operators and maintainers here have asked the government to help solve the “turtle phenomenon” in Pampanga, which they blamed for causing the steady demise of the fishing industry in this town.
They said the phenomenon has brought financial reverses among several fishpond operators in the province after the onslaught of back-to-back typhoons “Pedring” and “Quiel.”
I’m still wondering what the lead sentence above meant by saying that the “turtle phenomenon” in Pampanga is to be “blamed for causing the steady demise of the fishing industry in this town.”
To begin with, “steady demise” is an oxymoron, a combination of contradictory words. The noun “demise” means death or the cessation of existence, which of course is a permanent condition. So how then could “demise” be logically described as “steady”? The other thing, of course, is why the fishpond operators and maintainers are bewailing something—the death of the fishing industry in their town—that hasn’t even happened yet.
I think the reporter might have just wrongly expressed the sentiments of the fishpond operators and maintainers, and I’ll hazard this guess as to what they really might have meant to say:
“CANDABA, Pampanga, Philippines – Fishpond operators and maintainers here have asked the government to help solve the “turtle phenomenon” in Pampanga,
which they fear might lead to the eventual demise of the fishing industry in this town.”
(4) The Philippine Star: Misreporting through wrong choice of wordsWoman falls to her death from Makati building
MANILA, Philippines - A woman died after falling from the fourth floor of a condominium building in Barangay Bel-Air, Makati City, last night.
***
Police are looking for foul play in the incident.
The statement “Police are looking for foul play in the incident” would be a very bad reflection on the Makati police force if it were written intentionally. I have a strong feeling, though, that what the reporter intended to say was this:
“
Police are looking into possible foul play in the woman’s death.”
For the police to “look for foul play” means they are dead-set on attributing the fatality’s death to foul play; for them to “look into possible foul play” means they are keeping an open mind as to the cause of the fatality’s death, including possible foul play.
(5) GMA News Online: Misuse of the preposition “on”POEA defers OFW ban for 90 days as requested by DFA
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) has approved a 90-day deferment period on the deployment ban in 41 countries as requested by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said Friday.
Baldoz — also the POEA governing board chief — confirmed that the DFA sent them an official communication withdrawing the certifications that formed the basis of the ban.
The lead sentence above misuses the positional preposition “on” in the verb phrase “has approved a 90-day deferment period on the deployment ban in 41 countries”; the correct preposition is the attributive “for.”
That sentence should therefore read as follows:
“The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA)
has approved a 90-day deferment period for the deployment ban in 41 countries as requested by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said Friday.”
Alternatively, the word “period” can be dropped from that verb phrase to make it more concise, and the preposition “of” can then be used instead of “for,” as follows:
“The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA)
has approved a 90-day deferment of the deployment ban in 41 countries as requested by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said Friday.”
(6) GMA News Online: Redundancy5 quakes recorded in Luzon in 3 hours
At least five predawn quakes were recorded in the northern and southern parts of Luzon within a span of three hours before dawn Thursday.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said the quakes, measuring between magnitude 1.8 and 3.4, were recorded between 12:11 and 3:16 a.m. Thursday.
The lead sentence above suffers from a glaring redundancy. Since the earthquake was already modified by the adjective “predawn,” describing it later as having occurred “before dawn Thursday” creates the redundancy. A simple fix, of course, is simply to drop the modifier “predawn” for quakes so the sentence will read as follows:
“At least five
earthquakes were recorded in the northern and southern parts of Luzon within a span of three hours
before dawn Thursday.”
