One of the worst enemies of good journalism—and of all good writing for that matter—is gobbledygook, which is defined as wordy and generally unintelligible jargon. It’s the kind of long, pompous, vague, and convoluted English that usually finds haven in academic and technical journals, accepted and often understood without question by readers who are mostly of the same language mindset as that of its purveyors. No harm is done, of course, when gobbledygook stays within that rarefied language environment. But every now and then, through the efforts of language-deaf publicity agents and the acquiescence of some mass media editors, it gets into the pages of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines to confound and confuse lay readers.
Consider the following press release that came out recently in one of the leading Metro Manila broadsheets:
Firm backs gov’t environment drive
MANILA, Philippines — Considering the occurrence of phenomena related to climate change as a global interest, the Aquino government has been exerting stringent efforts to protect the environment and mitigate the effects of environmental degradation not only to the Filipinos but to the people of the world.
Part of these environmental protection measures includes the government’s appeal for industrial companies to take part in the noble program.
Heeding to this call, [X Corporation], one of the world’s leaders in the manufacture of zinc and aluminum diecast, expressed its commitment in protecting the environment by taking the cudgels in doing their part on such cause.
[X Corporation] president M, with help from N, director/senior technical engineer and sales manager; P, general manager of production department and R of the marketing and personnel support group, spearheads the company’s continued programs to carry out its business activities based on a policy of environment-friendly manufacturing. The policy includes the development of awareness on environmental issues to the level where environmental impact becomes a natural part of the daily work driving continual improvement and pollution prevention.
A notable feature of the above press release is that from beginning to finish, after expending a total of 184 words, we learn absolutely nothing concrete about what X Corporation is doing in environmental protection. To gain some media traction and curry official approval, that press release anchored itself on the vague, longwinded, and glittering generality that “the Aquino government has been exerting stringent efforts to protect the environment and mitigate the effects of environmental degradation not only to the Filipinos but to the people of the world.” Then it foists on the reader such big-word, vague, longwinded, and almost nonsensical statements as “considering the occurrence of phenomena related to climate change as a global interest,” “expressed its commitment in protecting the environment by taking the cudgels in doing their part on such cause,” and “the development of awareness on environmental issues to the level where environmental impact becomes a natural part of the daily work driving continual improvement and pollution prevention.”
As a sop to the company’s management, that press release even manages in the last paragraph to sneak in the names of the company’s key officials who are ostensibly spearheading the company’s environmental protection programs. After all that bluster, however, the press release has not really said anything specific or informative about what the company is doing to mitigate environmental degradation; in short, it’s a non-newsstory that managed to pass itself off as something of public interest.
I won’t even bother to analyze the pretentious word choices and shamelessly inflated phrasing of that story, for the whole of it is actually gobbledygook that couldn’t be improved or clarified by a rewrite. Instead, I’m presenting it as a particularly telling example of the kind of inconsequential, uninformative media releases that (1) companies and their publicity agents should be ashamed to submit to media outlets, and that (2) media editors shouldn’t legitimize them by allowing them to see print.
SHORT TAKES IN MY MEDIA ENGLISH WATCH:(1) Manila Bulletin: Grammatically incomplete sentence with a dangling phraseCheaper electricity in Bataan seen
MARIVELES, Bataan — Bataeños and investors in the province are looking forward to cheaper electricity rates once the construction of the 600-megaWatt (mW) GN power plant which is expected to be completed and made operational next year.
Governor Enrique “Tet” Garcia, one of the proponents of the GN power plant, said electricity will soon be offered at a price cheaper by 30 to 40 percent than present power rates being charged.
Due to faulty syntax, the lead sentence above is grammatically incomplete and hanging. This is because of the dysfunctional phrasing of the adverbial phrase “once the construction of the 600-megaWatt (mW) GN power plant which is expected to be completed and made operational next year.” That adverbial phrase dangles because of its grammatically incorrect usage of the relative clause “which is expected to be completed and made operational next year.”
See how the removal of the needless phrase “which is expected to be” from that adverbial phrase neatly fixes the problem and gets rid of the dangler:
“Bataeños and investors in the province are looking forward to cheaper electricity rates once the construction of the 600-megaWatt (mW) GN power plant
is completed and made operational next year.”
(2) The Manila Times: Inappropriate idiom usage Culprits caught on camera, caught afterward by police
QUEZON City Police District yesterday wrote finish to a series of robberies of computer shops in the metropolis with the arrest of five culprits, caught on camera during a recent holdup at local Internet shop.
***
Regis said the suspects, believed to be members of the “Sagasa Gang,” failed to notice four closed-circuit television cameras inside the shop they robbed last Saturday night.
The lead sentence above uses the idiom “wrote finish” inappropriately. The correct form of that idiom is “write finis,” not “finish” with an “h” at the tail end. The noun “finis” is actually a Latinate literary term that means “the end; the conclusion,” one that used to mark the end of books and films. It came into idiomatic use in the form of the verb phrase “write finis” in contrast to the verb phrase “brought finish,” as in “Bickering over finances
wrote finis to their marriage” and “The triumphant return of the hero
brought finish to the long novel.”
That lead sentence should therefore be more properly worded as follows:
“QUEZON City Police District yesterday
wrote finis to a series of robberies of computer shops in the metropolis with the arrest of five culprits, caught on camera during a recent holdup at a local Internet shop.”
(3) Manila Bulletin: Wrong tense usage; wrong phrasal verb Plastic-free Camiguin province launched
MAMBAJAO, Camiguin, Philippines – Officials of the “Born of Fire” province of Camiguin batted for a “Clean, Beautiful Plastic-Free” province in Northern Mindanao.
The provincial government spearheaded by Gov. Jurdin Jesus M. Romualdo and its six municipal mayors are now on the move to make the island province free from the effects of global warming and climate change.
Initially, officials of the island capital town of Mambajao made a cleanliness drive by putting a stop on the use of plastic bags.
The lead sentence above uses the wrong tense for the verb “bat.” Since the action of the Camiguin officials is presumably still a continuing one, that verb should be in the present progressive tense “are batting” instead of the past tense “batted.”
In the third paragraph, the correct phrasal verb is “putting a stop to” instead of “putting a stop on,” so the phrase should read as “putting a stop to the use of plastic bags.”
Here then are the first and third paragraphs of that lead passage as corrected:
MAMBAJAO, Camiguin, Philippines – Officials of the “Born of Fire” province of Camiguin are batting for a “Clean, Beautiful Plastic-Free” province in Northern Mindanao.
***
Initially, officials of the island capital town of Mambajao made a cleanliness drive by putting a stop to the use of plastic bags.
(4) The Manila Times: A misshapen metaphorNo end in sight for Baguio’s stinking mess
SUPER howler ‘Mina’ turned up as the fan to which the stink of Baguio City’s Irisan dump blew up—with heavy rains of over 130 millimeters drenching the site, triggering a trash avalanche that killed three people living below the dump’s retaining wall.
Tuba municipal Mayor Florencio Bentrez sees a practical solution to the stinking mess, telling Baguio mayor Mauricio Domogan to “haul out the garbage and stop dumping at the site.”
I don’t think the metaphor in the lead sentence above is very well-worded. For one, likening Typhoon Mina to a “fan” is too prosaic and also needless; for another, the phrasing of “the fan to which the stink of Baguio City’s Irisan dump blew up” is faulty both grammatically and structurally. The sense of that phrase is more properly along the lines of the typhoon “blew up the stink of Baguio City’s Irisan dump” or something to that effect.
Here’s my suggestion of how that lead sentence might be better worded and constructed:
“
Super howler ‘Mina’ literally blew up the stink of Baguio City’s Irisan dump,
drenching it with over 130 millimeters of heavy rains that triggered a trash avalanche, killing three people living below the dump’s retaining wall.”
