Questions sent by e-mail by Mr. Oscar Lagman (June 14, 2011):Joe,
May I comment on your reconstruction of this faulty sentence that appeared in media recently?
Tensions flare at DILG hearing in Cebu
CEBU, Philippines - Tensions ran high as the lawyers of Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and the late vice governor Gregorio Sanchez, Jr. yesterday engaged in thrash talking resulting to one threatening to hit the other.
Below is your reconstructed sentence:
“Tensions ran high as the lawyers of Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and the late vice governor Gregorio Sanchez, Jr. yesterday
engaged in a verbal tussle and almost came to blows.”
My immediate reaction upon reading the sentence was: What, the lawyers of Gov. Garcia engaged Vice Gov. Sanchez,
a dead man, in a verbal tussle and almost came to blows with him?
Should it have not been “Tensions ran high as the lawyers of Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and
of the late Governor Gregorio Sanchez yesterday
engaged in a verbal tussle and almost came to blows”?
While on the Net with you, can I ask you this question: Why do we use the past tense when we say: “It’s about time that we
did something about it”?
My reply to Oscar:You are absolutely right in supplying the preposition “of” to my reconstruction of this original sentence from the Freeman (Cebu):
“Tensions ran high as the lawyers of Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and the late vice governor Gregorio Sanchez, Jr. yesterday engaged in thrash talking resulting to one threatening to hit the other.” (My Media English Watch:
“Very frequent preposition misuse mars today's English journalism”)
After replacing the improper word choices and correcting the misuse of the phrasal verb “resulting to” in that sentence, I simply copied the rest of the sentence to come up with this reconstruction:
“Tensions ran high as the lawyers of Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and the late vice governor Gregorio Sanchez, Jr. yesterday
engaged in a verbal tussle and almost came to blows.”
I woefully missed out on the fact that this and the original sentence also need the preposition “of” before the noun phrase “the late vice governor Gregorio Sanchez, Jr.” to make the statement not only grammatically but also semantically correct. My reconstruction should then be corrected as follows:
“Tensions ran high as the lawyers of Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and
of the late vice governor Gregorio Sanchez, Jr. yesterday
engaged in a verbal tussle and almost came to blows.”
Without the preposition “of,” as you have astutely pointed out, it absurdly appears that the late Vice Gov. Sanchez had come back to life, engaged the lawyers of Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia in a verbal tussle, and almost came to blows with them.”
This, I must say, dramatically demonstrates the crucial importance of prepositions in English. It could make a life-or-death difference to the protoganists in the action described by a sentence!
Now as to this other question of yours: “Why do we use the past tense when we say: ‘It’s about time that we
did something about it’?”
That’s a tough grammar question, but after carefully scrutinizing the sentence, I have determined it to be a wishful statement in the subjunctive mood. It’s in the same class of subjunctive wishful statements as the following:
“I wish I
knew.” (Its indicative form, “I wish I
know,” is grammatically faulty.)
“She wishes you
were not here.” (Its indicative form, “She wishes you
are not here,” is likewise grammatically faulty.)
The hallmark of such wishful subjunctive statements is the use of the past tense of the operative verb instead of its present tense. This usage has become rare, but there it
still is.
If I may add, Oscar, this made me ponder the grammatical legitimacy of this slogan of a Philippine-based budget airline: “It’s time everybody
flies.” If we analyze it in the same way as “It’s about time that we did something about it,” we’d come to the inescapable conclusion that it’s also a wishful statement in the subjunctive mood. In other words, it’s grammatically and semantically wrong and need to be restated as “It’s time everybody
flew.”
Of course, I expect that airline’s advertising agency to defend the current phrasing of that slogan and to justify it as an exercise of, well, advertising or literary license. I’d do the same if I were caught committing the same grammatical violation!
