Being a newspaper columnist myself, I normally refrain from making grammar critiques of other newspaper and magazine columnists who write in English. I always presume that they must know their English well enough to have become columnists, and that whenever they make occasional mistakes in their grammar and usage, there’s always the section editors to rectify those mistakes before a column gets to print.
But I can’t help but raise the red alert when a columnist really goes out of bounds in violating grammar and his or her editor misses out on them or ignores them altogether. My feeling is that if we let those serious grammar errors be, many impressionable readers—especially young people who are still trying to gain a mastery of the language—might think that those errors are perfectly correct usage that’s worthy of emulation.
These thoughts came to mind when I read this particular opening sentence of a columnist in a recent issue of a leading broadsheet:
“Taking a significant role in promoting and developing Cebu’s business and tourism industry while taking a bold stand in the country’s socio-economic challenges, The Marco Polo Plaza Cebu, the only 5-star hotel in Cebu led by hardworking general manager [name withheld], recently hosted two highly-successful business conferences entitled ‘Facing Old Challenges, Forging New Engagements’ and ‘Meet the Business Icons.’”
This 59-word sentence packs so many ideas in its complex-compound structure, all demanding the reader’s priority attention, thus making it so difficult to figure out what the subject of that sentence is and to grasp what the writer wants to say in the first place. The problem is further compounded by the fact that the sentence has at least two fused or run-on parts, and gets fractured in its midsection by a badly misplaced modifying phrase.
The result, of course, is grammatical bedlam.
MY CRITIQUE AND SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS:
Let’s look more closely at the problematic sentence:
“Taking a significant role in promoting and developing Cebu’s business and tourism industry while taking a bold stand in the country’s socio-economic challenges, The Marco Polo Plaza Cebu, the only 5-star hotel in Cebu led by hardworking general manager [name withheld], recently hosted two highly-successful business conferences entitled ‘Facing Old Challenges, Forging New Engagements’ and ‘Meet the Business Icons.’”
Note that the sentence begins with the 23-word complex participial phrase “taking a significant role in promoting and developing Cebu’s business and tourism industry while taking a bold stand in the country’s socio-economic challenges.” As a result, the reader doesn’t get an idea of what the subject of the sentence is all about until 24 words later, when the eye finally latches on to the noun phrase “The Marco Polo Plaza Cebu.” Even if the reader has already read this far, however, the operative verb of the sentence is still nowhere in sight. This is because the writer had to interject still another long modifier, the 13-word appositive phrase “the only 5-star hotel in Cebu led by hardworking general manager [name withheld],” between the subject “The Marco Polo Plaza Cebu” and the operative verb, which turns out to be “hosted”—buried 42 words deep into the sentence.
This, I must observe at this point, very seriously violates a basic rule in English sentence construction: that for an operative verb to work optimally in a sentence, it must be placed as closely as possible to its subject or to the doer of the verb’s action. Otherwise, it would be so difficult for the reader to relate one to the other, and so difficult for him or her to make sense of what the sentence is saying.
But an even more serious grammar problem develops at this point. Before reaching the operative verb “hosted,” the sentence is fractured by the misplaced modifier (shown underlined here) in the phrase “the only 5-star hotel in Cebu led by hardworking general manager [name withheld].” This phrase gives the absurd sense that the hardworking general manager leads so many other Cebu hotels of fewer stars, and that there are other 5-star hotels in Cebu, one of which—the hotel that’s the subject here—happens to be managed by him. It’s obvious, of course, that what the writer intended to say was that The Marco Polo Plaza Cebu is the only 5-star hotel in Cebu—period—and that the modifier that says the hotel happens to be led by this particular hardworking general manager should best be tacked on elsewhere.
Finally, the predicate complement at the tail end of the sentence, “two highly-successful business conferences entitled ‘Facing Old Challenges, Forging New Engagements’ and ‘Meet the Business Icons,’” has a run-on, badly phrased, mixed-up construction. It gives the queasy impression that both of the two conferences had the same two titles—which, of course, is absurd.
Only a major rewrite of the whole sentence could fix all of these grammatical, semantic, and structural problems. As a general reconstruction strategy, I propose to break down the sentence into two or more sentences to relieve it of its severe information overload, to eliminate the misplaced modifying phrase in its midsection, and to straighten the mixed-up construction of the predicate complement of the sentence.
Here’s my proposed fix for that sentence:
“The Marco Polo Plaza Cebu, the only 5-star hotel in Cebu, has taken a significant role in promoting and developing Cebu’s business and tourism industry while taking a bold stand in the face of the country’s socio-economic challenges. Led by [name withheld], its hardworking general manager, the hotel recently hosted two highly-successful business conferences, the first entitled ‘Facing Old Challenges, Forging New Engagements’ and the other, ‘Meet the Business Icons.’”
Tell me what you think about this reconstruction.
PROBLEMATIC GRAMMAR ODDS AND ENDS FROM THE SAME BROADSHEET:
1. Misuse of causative form
“A World War II vintage cargo plane swerved off the runway and had its right landing gear explode upon landing at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport while on a test flight yesterday.”
Problems:
(a) The misuse of the phrase “and had its right landing explode” gives the wrong sense that the cargo plane deliberately made its right landing gear explode. It should always be kept in mind that the form “have + something + verb”—one of the causative forms—conveys the meaning that the doer of the action purposively made something happen through some unidentified agent that actually did the action.
(b) The choice of the subordinating conjunction “while” is incorrect for the particular context of the sentence; it should be “after” since the test flight was over and the plane had already landed.
Fix:
“A World War II vintage cargo plane swerved off the runway and its right landing gear exploded when it landed at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport after a test flight yesterday.”
2. Bad phrasing x 2
“The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is pursuing a move to administer a scholastic aptitude test (SAT) to all high school students that will determine if they can go on to study for a ‘university degree’ or to a ‘community college’.”
Problems:
(a) “Pursuing a move to administer” is bad phrasing. A “move” can be undertaken, but only a “plan,” “proposal,” or “suggestion” can be “pursued” or “implemented.”
(b) The phrase “that will determine if they can go on to study for a ‘university degree’ or to a ‘community college’” is wordy and awkwardly phrased. A prepositional phrase can do the job much better and more concisely.
Fix:
“The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is implementing a plan to administer a scholastic aptitude test (SAT) to all high school students to determine if they are better suited for study in a university or in a community college.”
3. Awkward phrasing
“An incubator for custom hatching of poultry eggs and another more sophisticated one for those of ostriches, or cages for chicken brooding, growing and laying at every possible scale.”
Problem:
“Another more sophisticated one” is awkward phrasing; the correct phrasing is “a more sophisticated one.”
Fix:
“An incubator for custom hatching of poultry eggs and a more sophisticated one for those of ostriches, or cages for chicken brooding, growing and laying at every possible scale.”
4. Multiple gobbledygook
“Companies all over the world are now driven to offer new services as they mount aggressive and creative solutions to ride out current economic difficulties.”
Problem:
For the life of me, I still can’t figure out what this sentence wants to say. I am totally bewildered by the play of the figurative verb phrases “are now driven to offer,” “as they mount,” and “to ride out.”
Fix:
Can somebody please try to fix this problematic sentence and make it say something concrete?
-----
What do you think of the state of English usage in the Philippine media today? Has it improved or has it worsened? Why do you think so? Click the Reply button to post your thoughts on Jose Carillo’s English Forum.
