For almost a month now, the major news stories and features of the four leading Metro Manila broadsheets have been practically error-free in their English grammar and usage. I was glad to find that as far as their front-page offerings are concerned, there had been no incidence of serious English misuse that’s worth discussing in this Forum.
But I must quickly add that my elation was short-lived. When I looked over their op-ed pages and regular sections during the past week, I was disappointed to find some flagrantly bad English and extreme cases of wordiness. Here they are with my corresponding critiques:
(1) Philippine Inquirer: Serious pronoun misuse and semantic confusionEditorial: Failure an option“On Friday, Jan. 22, after years of studiously ignoring them, members of Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines were invited to have dinner with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. One correspondent, Raissa Robles, asked the President if she was personally concerned over the coming elections. The President looked at the ceiling, then, as if thinking aloud, said, “I’m worried. I’m worried, but I ... I have to go by what the Comelec said.”
This particular broadsheet usually comes up with well-thought-out and grammatically polished editorials, so I couldn’t believe my eyes when I came across that seriously flawed first sentence in the above paragraph. The prepositional phrase “after years of studiously ignoring them” is a severe case of pronoun misuse and confused semantics. Worse, the ill-advised use of the passive voice for the main clause results in: (a) semantic quandary as to what the true subject of the sentence is, and (b) what the referent noun of that prepositional phrase should really be.
Obviously, of course, the true subject of that passive-voice sentence is “members of Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines,” not “President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.” It follows therefore that using the pronoun “them” in that prepositional phrase is a grievous mistake, for that would make the FOCAP—that association’s acronym—the ignorer that ignores itself, which obviously is an absurd state of affairs.
A possible fix for that flawed sentence is to also render that prepositional phrase in the passive voice to match its passive-voice main clause, as follows:
“On Friday, Jan. 22,
after years of being studiously ignored, members of Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines were invited to have dinner with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.”
This rewrite handily gets rid of the antecedent-pronoun confusion, making it crystal clear that it was the FOCAP members who were the ignored, not the ignorers. But the problem is that this grammar fix still doesn’t make it clear who did the ignoring. Was it some phantom of the palace, or was it President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo herself who supposedly did it? The passive-voice construction forced the sentence to be silent on that, but we can reasonably assume that it was indeed the president who did the act of “studiously ignoring” the correspondents.
This state of affairs is a major pitfall of using the passive voice indiscriminately, but it’s a problem that the good, old active voice readily eliminates. Look:
“On Friday, Jan. 22,
after years of studiously ignoring them, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo finally invited the members of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines to have dinner with her at Malacañang.”
Even better and more concise:
“On Friday, Jan. 22,
after years of studiously ignoring them, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo finally invited the members of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines to dinner at Malacañang.”
This time, there’s no longer any doubt who was the inviter and invitee, and who was the ignorer and the ignored.
(2) Manila Bulletin: Rank redundancies, faulty comparative constructionsEditorial: First International Autism Conference“The hallmark feature of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is impaired social interactions.
“A person with autism senses things differently than we normally do, and also responds to them in other ways in what we would call abnormal behaviors. The problem is we do not exactly know how or why these abnormalities cause someone with autism to experience the world differently.”
This lead passage of the editorial is marred by three serious grammatical flaws: a rank redundancy in the first sentence, two faulty comparative constructions in the second, and wordiness in the third.
By definition, a “hallmark” is a “distinguishing characteristic, trait, or feature,” so the word “hallmark” already subsumes the “feature” aspect. The word “hallmark” can very well stand by itself, so the term “hallmark feature” is a tautology or a redundancy.
Now, let’s take a look at the second problematic sentence: “
A person with autism senses things differently than we normally do, and
also responds to them in other ways in what we would call abnormal behaviors.”
The comparative phrases “senses things differently than we normally do” and “responds to them in other ways in what we would call abnormal behaviors” are very awkwardly worded, unidiomatic, and extremely wordy as well. In particular, the phrase “differently than we normally do” is an abstruse construction that wrongly uses the conjunction “than”; “from” is the accepted usage in such constructions. Also, the extremely wordy phrase “responds to them in other ways in what we would call abnormal behaviors” can actually be boiled down to “responds to them in abnormal ways.”
Here’s that second problematic sentence as corrected and made more concise:
“An
autistic person senses things differently from normal people and
responds to them in abnormal ways.”
That construction, by the way, yields a total savings of 11 words or 29%.
Finally, the wordy third sentence can be made more concise, as follows:
“The problem is we do not exactly know how or why these abnormalities
make autistic people experience the world differently.”
This yields savings of 2 words (10%).
So here’s the whole passage as corrected and improved:
“The hallmark of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is impaired social interactions.
“An autistic person senses things differently from normal people and responds to them in abnormal ways. The problem is we do not exactly know how or why these abnormalities make autistic people experience the world differently.”
Total savings: 13 words (21.7%)
(3) Manila Bulletin: Even more serious redundancies, wrong plural for mass nounNews: Cebu placed under state of disaster preparedness“CEBU CITY – This city has been placed under a state of disaster preparedness to prepare it for and make it response-ready for any calamity hitting it in the future.
“Declaring the city by the Cebu City Council under a state of disaster preparedness would allow the use of its calamity fund for pre-and-post disaster activities and other programs, including the implementation of mitigating measures, training, capabilities building, and information campaign.
“The city will also use said funds for stockpiling relief supplies and purchasing equipments and tools needed during disaster operations.”
In the first sentence of the passage, the entire phrase “to prepare it for and make it response-ready for any calamity hitting it in the future” is redundant, merely repeating a meaning that’s already embodied by the noun phrase “a state of disaster preparedness.” The sentence can very well stand without it:
“This city has been placed under a state of disaster preparedness.”
The second sentence of the passage suffers from extreme wordiness. It could be boiled down to:
“The declaration allows the city to use of its calamity fund for pre-and-post disaster activities, including mitigating measures, training, capabilities building, and information campaign.”
The third sentence can also be made much more concise, apart from correcting the erroneous plural-form “equipments” to “equipment”:
“The city can now also stockpile relief supplies and buy equipment and tools.”
Here’s the whole passage as boiled down:
“This city has been placed under a state of disaster preparedness.
“The declaration allows the city to use of its calamity fund for pre-and-post disaster activities, including mitigating measures, training, capabilities building, and information campaign.”
“The city can now also stockpile relief supplies and buy equipment and tools.”
Savings: 40 words (45.4%)
(4) The Manila Times: Wrong word choice, wordinessTourism holidays promote country’s economic growth“Tourism Secretary Robert ‘Ace’ Durano invited the Filipinos to use their holidays wisely, as he urged the public to spend their holidays in the country by exploring the tourism spots and contribute to the growth of the economy. Malacañang earlier declared long-weekends for the year 2010.
Contextually, the verb “invited” in the lead sentence above is inappropriate; “urged” or “encouraged” would be much better semantically.
The phrase “as he urged the public to spend their holidays in the country by exploring the tourism spots and contribute to the growth of the economy” is wordy. It can be boiled down to, say, “by exploring the country’s own tourist spots and help grow the domestic economy.”
Here’s the problematic passage as made more concise:
“Tourism Secretary Robert ‘Ace’ Durano urged Filipinos to use their holidays wisely by exploring the country’s own tourist spots and help grow the domestic economy. Malacañang earlier declared long-weekends for the year 2010.”
Savings: 46 to 33 words (28.3%)
(5) The Manila Times: Misplaced modifying phraseTop communist rebels arrested“ZAMBOANGA CITY: Philippine authorities have captured two senior communist rebel leaders who are long wanted for a string of criminal charges at a military checkpoint in Mindanao, officials said Wednesday.”
In the lead sentence above, the adverbial phrase “at a military checkpoint in Mindanao” is misplaced, making it wrongly modify “a string of criminal charges” instead of its true referent, the verb “captured.”
Here’s a construction that puts that modifying phrase in its proper place:
“ZAMBOANGA CITY: Philippine authorities have captured
at a military checkpoint in Mindanao two senior communist rebel leaders who were long wanted for a string of criminal charges, officials said Wednesday.”
