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21
The Social Security System (SSS) said it released PhP156.7 billion retirement benefits to 2.2 million members in 2023, making it the most availed SSS benefit last year.

SSS Vice President for Benefits Administration Division Joy A. Villacorta said that of the 4.7 million benefits disbursed to pensioners, members, and their beneficiaries in 2023, nearly half or 47 percent received retirement benefits.
 
Villacorta said SSS released about PhP156.7 billion in retirement benefits to 2.2 million payees in 2023, up by 10.7 percent from the PhP141.5 billion retirement benefits given to over 2 million payees in the previous year.  The majority of these payees, at around 87.46 percent of the total, are pensioners.


“Retirement benefit is a cash benefit being granted by SSS to a member who can no longer work due to old age. Members who paid at least 120 monthly contributions will get a lifetime monthly pension while those with less than 120 monthly contributions will receive a one-time lump sum amount,” Villacorta explained.
 
She said that death benefit came in second with a total release of PhP70.1 billion to 1.4 million beneficiaries last year, slightly lower than the PhP70.2 billion death benefits to 1.3 million beneficiaries in 2022.
 
“SSS grants cash benefit to beneficiaries of a deceased member. Deceased SSS members with 36 monthly contributions will entitle their beneficiaries to a monthly pension. In comparison, beneficiaries of those with less than 36 monthly contributions will get a one-time lump sum amount,” she added.
 
Maternity benefit follows with a disbursement of PhP14.1 billion to 357,000 members in 2023, which rose by 9.6 percent from about PhP12.9 billion recorded in 2022.
 
Villacorta said that female members who have paid at least three monthly contributions in the last 12 months before the semester of childbirth, miscarriage, or emergency termination of pregnancy can avail of the maternity benefit.  As provided in the Expanded Maternity Leave Law (EMLL), the SSS maternity benefit is paid to an eligible member at every instance of her pregnancy since March 2019.
 
Meanwhile, Villacorta noted that disability benefit came in fourth, with PhP7.5 billion released to over 130,000 members last year, a 16.3 percent increase from the PhP6.4 billion released in 2022.
 
“Members who become disabled either partially or totally can receive a monthly pension or lump sum amount under the disability benefit. Members who have paid at least 36 monthly contributions are qualified to get a monthly disability pension while those with less than 36 monthly contributions will be granted a lump sum amount,” she added.
 
She said that funeral benefit follows with PhP4.8 billion reimbursed to 211,000 payees, and sickness benefit with PhP3.2 billion provided to 376,000 members.
 
“We grant SS funeral benefits to whoever paid the funeral expenses of the deceased member.  Claimants of deceased members with 36 or more monthly contributions may receive a variable amount from PhP20,000 to PhP60,000 depending on the number and amount of contributions paid by the member.  The funeral benefit arising from the death of a member who paid less than 36 monthly contributions is fixed at PhP12,000,” she continued.
 
Further, Villacorta said that sickness benefit is a daily cash allowance paid for the number of days a member cannot work due to sickness or injury.
 
“Unemployment benefit is the least availed benefit in 2023 with a total disbursement of PhP914.1 million to 64,000 members, down by 4.9 percent from the PhP961.4 million released to 75,000 members in 2022. This is also a reflection of the continuing improvement in the Philippine labor market with the unemployment rate reaching its lowest levels last year,” she said.
 
Villacorta noted that benefit payments in 2023 amounted to PhP257.4 billion, up by 6.9 percent from the PhP240.6 billion disbursed in 2022.
22
PLAYLIST UPDATE FOR MARCH 2 - 8, 2024 OF JOSE CARILLO ENGLISH FORUM’S FACEBOOK GATEWAY

Simply click the web links to the 15 featured English grammar refreshers and general interest stories this week along with selected postings published in the Forum in previous years:

1. Essay by Jose A. Carillo: “Editing oneself”


                                         
                                     
2. Getting to Know English Better: "Using the subjunctive more confidently"




3. Getting to Know English Better: “The four forms that absolute phrases take”




4. My Media English Watch Retrospective: “There’s more than meets the eye in media’s odd use of 'concerning'”




5. Forum Lounge Retrospective: “When an English teacher prescribes an awful subject-agreement blunder”




6. Advice and Dissent Retrospective: "The quest for answers on why the world exists to begin with"




7. Getting to Know English: "A quick review in the use or non-use of modifiers”





8. Education and Teaching: "Tarlac university offers English course to Japanese students”


     TARLAC STATE UNIVERSITY - OSAKA UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS PARTNERSHIP


9. Language Humor at its Finest: “A cavalcade of palindromes”




10. Your Thoughts Exactly: “Whatever became of ‘Fine!’, ‘You’re Welcome!’, and ‘Dead’?” by Isabel Escoda, Forum Contributor




11. Readings in Language: “Style as pleasurable mastery rather than minefield of grievous errors“




12. Advice and Dissent Retrospective: “Historian's commentary on Gines de Mafra's account of the Magellan expedition,“ by Dr. Jorge Mojarro Romero, Ph.D




13. Essay by Jose A. Carillo: “‘Like’ and ‘such as’ are such slippery grammar trippers“




14. Time Out From English Grammar: “Redux: So now as it was then, this is the world in 854 words“




15. A Forum Lounge Special: “A stage musical presentation to take your breath away!”
 






23
The Manila Times reported in its March 6, 2024 issue that the Tarlac State University (TSU), the premier higher education institution in Tarlac province, signed a memorandum of agreement with Japan’s Osaka University of Economics (OUE) to train 13 of its Japanese university students in a two-week intensive English course under the TSU’s English Language Proficiency Program.

   
TARLAC STATE UNIVERSITY - OSAKA UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS PARTNERSHIP

Nine faculty members in the Communication and English Departments of TSU’s College of Arts and Social Sciences headed by its dean, Dr. Aloysius Madriaga, will teach the Japanese students the four English language macro skills of writing, listening, speaking, and reading.

The agreement between the two long-established Asian higher education institutions was signed by their respective university presidents, Dr. Arnold Velasco of TSU and Dr. Shunichiro Yamamoto of OUE.

Read the report in full in the March 6, 2024 Internet edition of The Manila Times
24
Essays by Joe Carillo / Editing oneself
« Last post by Joe Carillo on March 05, 2024, 12:25:28 AM »
Like most people, it took me a long time to discover that what matters more in writing is not so much what we want to say but what the readers want to know. This, I think, is the biggest single reason why most of the writing we see around us is stiff, obtuse, and uncommunicative. Many writers forget or don’t even think about who their readers or listeners are. They do a secret monologue to themselves.

No wonder then that not just a few articles for academic journals simply end up talking to the paper they are written on, and why many of the speeches we hear are so obtuse they might as well be delivered before an empty hall. A significant percentage of the writing that comes my way to be edited, in fact, shows very little evidence of honest-to-goodness effort to connect to the reader or listener. The research is often competent, but the prose almost always suffers from the dead weight of piled-up, undigested, and impersonally expressed information.

                              IMAGE CREDIT: BY NIC MCPHEE AS POSTED ON EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Take this lead sentence of a draft speech by an Asian writer that I edited sometime ago: “Aldous Huxley wrote brilliantly about hallucinogens and their effect on creativity.” Of course, only someone who has read several books about Huxley, about hallucinogens, and about creativity can legitimately make such an audacious thesis—and the writer in this case evidently had not done so. What I did then was to recast the passage so the author could more modestly say it in the first-person singular and make the proper attributions: “A few days ago, I came across this brilliant but disturbing idea by Aldous Huxley, who wrote about hallucinogens and their effect on creativity. Let me share it with you and comment about it as I go along …” By doing so, I saved the writer from the embarrassment of making a tall claim totally outside his level of expertise.

This is actually a simple paradox: you become authoritative only when you write or speak as yourself. You can comfortably talk only about the things you really know, and only after you have declared the limits of your knowledge. Readers and audiences have a sixth sense for claimed authority that’s not really there, no matter if you have an MA or PhD tacked to your name. I therefore suggest you try this approach if you already have a draft of anything that’s bothering you for its dryness and stiffness, or perhaps for not being entirely original. See how this personal approach can perk up your prose and make it sound more interesting and convincing.

One final thought about self-editing: no draft is ever sacrosanct and final. There’s always a better way to say what you have written. With today’s word processors, it’s so much easier now to clarify prose that would otherwise mystify or confuse, or to support abstract concepts with telling details and picture words. You can easily transpose whole sentences and paragraphs,

And just when everything seems to be already in place, go over your draft once more. Knock off any word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph that doesn’t contribute to the idea or mood you want to convey. Stop only when you have whittled down your manuscript until it’s in danger of collapsing if you attempted to excise another word. In time, you will discover what many successful writers already know but rarely publicly admit—that good writing is really the art of rewriting, the art of doing brutal surgery on one’s own starting or preliminary thoughts.
------------------------
This essay first appeared in my English-usage column in The Manila Times and subsequently formed Chapter 137 of my book Give Your English the Winning Edge, ©2009 by Jose A. Carillo. All rights reserved.

Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in The Manila Times:
Editing oneself

(Next: The age of imprecision)        March 7, 2024                                                                                              

Visit Jose Carillo’s English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com. You can follow me on Facebook and X (Twitter) and e-mail me at j8carillo@yahoo.com.
25
PLAYLIST UPDATE FOR FEBRUARY 24 - MARCH 1, 2024 OF JOSE CARILLO ENGLISH FORUM’S FACEBOOK GATEWAY

Simply click the web links to the 16 featured English grammar refreshers and general interest stories this week along with selected postings published in the Forum in previous years:

1. Essay by Joe Carillo: “When educators befuddle with their English”


                                         
                                     
2. You Asked Me This Question: “The touchy matter of capitalizing names and position titles”




3. Refresher on an Important English Grammar Basic: “The perils of using double negative constructions”




4. Students’ Sounding Board: “Which is correct and why? ‘I didn’t (see, saw) her’”




5. Forum Lounge Retrospective: “On English and Esperanto as bridging languages in multilingual countries”




6. Students’ Sounding Board: “Is the expression ‘feet of clay’ considered an idiom?”




7. Advice and Dissent: “Belief without evidence to support it is always morally wrong”




8. Getting To Know English Better: “Logic and language”




9. Language Humor at its Finest: “32 words of wisdom with a humorous touch”




10. You Asked Me This Question: “Let’s get acclimatized to the country’s weather terminology”




11. You Asked Me This Question: “Where’s the verb on this sentence?”



   
12. Readings in Language: “The triumph of English over Babel to become the language of science“




13. Education and Teaching Retrospective: “The rocky road to idiomatic English“




14. Your Thoughts Exactly Retrospective: “Outrage over a wasted investment in English proficiency“




15. Your Thoughts Exactly: “How light dawns on us,“ Personal Essay by Forum Member Melvin




16. You Asked Me This Question: “Is it correct to use the verb ‘invite’ as a noun?”, Personal Query by Hill Roberts in Spain






26
Essays by Joe Carillo / When educators befuddle with their English
« Last post by Joe Carillo on February 29, 2024, 12:50:26 PM »
My son Eduardo, who was then in third year high, got befuddled one day by a source material he wanted to use for his school report on Philippine culture. He had chanced upon it on the op-ed page of one of the leading newspapers.

“Dad, I found a very impressive report on the effect of culture on globalization,” he said. “The only problem is that I can’t seem to understand what it’s saying. Can you help me? Listen: '‘Basically, globalization indicates a qualitative deepening of the internationalization process, strengthening the functional and weakening the territorial dimension of development.’ You always told me that I’m good in English, but I just can’t seem to understand that one!”



“Let me take a look,” I said, getting the paper and quickly running through the passage. “Oh, no wonder! It’s those educators speaking again with their imprecise and obtuse English. Well, son, what they probably meant was this: ‘Globalization is a deeper form of internationalization, one where a nation’s drive for development becomes more important than its territorial size.’ In even simpler English, a nation can be small but it can become a major world economic power.”

“That certainly makes sense,” he said, “but why do these educators say it the way they do? They are writing not only for English experts but also for people like me, aren’t they? Why then use such fuzzy words as ‘qualitative deepening’ and ‘territorial dimension of development’? Why even use them in a newspaper like this?”

“Son, this article was not written for you. It was probably done with the best intentions for their fellow educators and higher-ups, but somehow it landed on this newspaper without being adapted for readers like us. In any case, don’t ever think that anyone should use an ‘English for experts’ only. Linguists perhaps, but these educators, no! They should have used English that newspaper readers like us can understand.”

“So why publish at all if they couldn’t be understood anyway?”

“Well, son, in academic circles there’s a jaded saying: ‘Publish or perish!’ You must publish your work no matter how trivial or badly written, or you don’t count for anything. You are dead fish. So in some countries—ours included— there has evolved something called vanity publishing. It’s a growing industry that aims to meet this need—and also to massage some big people’s egos. Every now and then, of course, some good ideas with social value get across somehow through this mode, but more often they don’t, as in this case.”

“I see. But, Dad, here’s a great passage that seems to be clear enough for my school report. Listen: ‘The Philippine national culture is rooted in the people, their land, and their experience. From these develop their way of seeing and living, their systems of thought and values, their customs and traditions, their crafts and arts, their problems and their triumphs, that which they dream of and aspire for, and ultimately the national culture that they recognize in consensus and commitment.’ Impressive! Do you think I can use it?”

“I’m not too sure, son. That sounds suspiciously trivial, more like a piled up definition of culture in general, but the authors just seem to have made it look like it was unique to Philippine culture in particular. You can apply the same thing to Kenya and Tobago and Palau and it will still be correct. In their own circles it’s called ‘rank tautology,’ a needless repetition of an idea in different words. In fact, they could have reduced all of those 62 words into the words ‘Philippine culture is unique’ and nothing would have been lost.”

“Tough luck then! Now I’ll have to look for some other source material for my report,” he said, almost wailing. “But wait, Dad, here’s something that I’m sure will impress my teacher. Listen: ‘The third posits that education paves the way towards the designated type of society—which, to our belief, is a modern and humane society characterized by a comfortable quality of life in a peaceful, global and multicultural connection demonstrating adaptability and flexibility of a people without necessarily vitiating the core values that they hold or which define their culture.’ Isn’t it great English? I’ll probably get a 95 for my paper if I used it!”

“Hold it, son, hold it! That sentence may sound nice but it actually says almost nothing. No new insight whatsoever. Notice how all of the 59 words are straining and groaning to define what needs no definition, because everybody already knows it deeply in his heart: that society needs good education to prosper. Don’t tell me that you still don’t know that!”

“You’re right, Dad,” he said dolefully, “of course I already know that. But aargh! I guess I’ll just have to look elsewhere for something more substantial and readable for my school report.” (2004)

This essay first appeared in my English-usage column in The Manila Times in 2004 and subsequently formed Chapter 142 of my book Give Your English the Winning Edge.

Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in The Manila Times:
When educators befuddle with their English

(Next: Editing oneself)             March 7, 2024
                                                                                             
Visit Jose Carillo’s English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com. You can follow me on Facebook and X (Twitter) and e-mail me at j8carillo@yahoo.com.
27
February 28, 2024

Dear Forum Member and Friend,

Earlier this February, the Forum presented an intensive six-part review of the three major types of grammar connectives—the coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, and conjunctive adverbs. To complete this review of the English connectives, we are now moving on to the prepositions as the fourth type of functional connective and finally to the use of discourse markers.

 


Part 7 - Introduction -The prepositions for modifying elements within the same clause or sentence
https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8220.0

Part 8 - The prepositions for indicating place and location (1)
https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8221.0

Part 9-  The prepositions for indicating motion and direction (2)
https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8222.0

Part 10 - The prepositions for timekeeping (3)
https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8224.0

Part 11 - The prepositions for establishing logical relationships (4)
https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8226.0

Part 12 - The use of discourse markers for contextualizing ideas (5)
https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8229.0

A final word on the prepositions, discourse markers, and the three major types of conjunctions taken up in this and in the preceding six-part intensive review of the English conjunctions:

Some prepositions work very much like conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs—but with a major structural difference. A preposition typically establishes a relationship between ideas within the same clause; this is in contrast with a conjunction or conjunctive adverb, which typically establishes a relationship between clauses or across sentences and across paragraphs. Depending on how the sentence is constructed, in fact, some prepositions can also function as conjunctions and adverbs—sometimes even as adjectives.

On the other hand, what distinguishes discourse markers from the typical propositions is that while the former also carry grammatical meaning and signal relations between parts of sentences or clauses, discourse markers are relatively not dependent on the syntax of the sentence and usually don’t alter the truth of what’s being said
.

You can likewise directly access the six parts of this intensive review of the English prepositions and discourse markers from the Homepage of Jose Carillo's English Forum by simply clicking this link: https://josecarilloforum.com/.

Good luck in your continuing personal quest for better English!

Sincerely yours,
Joe Carillo

28
Advice and Dissent Retrospective:
“DID THE FIRST MASS HISTORIANS EVER TALK TO ONE ANOTHER? - Parts 1, 2, and 3


On the run-up to the coming 503rd anniversary of the very first Holy Mass in the Philippine archipelago that took place on March 31, 1521, the Forum is doing a retrospective of a three-part article, "Did the First Mass historians ever talk to one another?", that I posted on September 16 and 23 and October 27, 2021. The article was in reply to a question raised in an e-mail sent to me by Forum member Miss Mae in early September that same year.

Here's Miss Mae's question: “I wonder if Maximilianus Translyvanus had asked for Antonio Pigafetta’s permission when he wrote a version of the narrative. The problem started with him. He may be a royal courtier and secretary to the king but wasn’t verifying one of his responsibilities? This historical mistake must also be included in the profile of Giovanni Battista Ramusio. I have grown up believing that the First Mass happened in Limasawa and a classmate or two of mine were marked wrong because they didn’t get the spelling of the place correctly.”

She raised that question shortly after the Forum wrapped up on August 18, 2021 its 21-part series on the ages-long controversy over where the first Holy Mass in the Philippines was actually celebrated--was it in the island of Mazaua as recorded in the first-hand account of Antonio Pigafetta, the official chronicler of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition to the Philippine archipelago; or in the island of Limasawa in the Visayas that the Church Historians Association of the Philippines (CHAP) and the pro-Limasawans, against all evidence, have aggressively defended over the years and succeeded in getting officially recognized as the historically correct site of that first Holy Mass?


All those interested are invited to once again review with an open mind the indubitable evidence and historical accounts as well as the pertinent geographical and navigational information regarding this momentous event in Philippine history. 

SUGGESTED READING SEQUENCE OF THE FORUM POSTINGS:
1. "Did the First Mass historians ever talk to one another?"
    Part 1 - https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8451.0
    Part 2 - https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8453.0
    Part 3 - https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8458.0

2. "New history book asserts that the lost island of Mazaua is the true site of the first Holy Mass in the Philippines" 
      https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8315.0

3. "Getting our Philippine history right after 500 years" - Parts 1 to 21
     https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8348.0 ...
     https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8435.0 (Conclusion)
29
PLAYLIST UPDATE FOR FEBRUARY 17 - 23, 2024 OF JOSE CARILLO ENGLISH FORUM’S FACEBOOK GATEWAY

Simply click the web links to the 15 featured English grammar refreshers and general interest stories this week along with selected postings published in the Forum in previous years:

1. Essays by Joe Carillo: “Preventing the word ‘only‘ from going haywire”


                                         
                                     
2. You Asked Me This Question: “What's the correct tense for reporting verbs in reported speech?”




3. Use and Misuse: “A wide-raging potpourri of bad English aired in the Forum 14 years ago”





4. Getting to Know English: “The great importance of parallelism in good writing”




5. Badly Written, Badly Spoken: “Thrown off by the highly officious and bureaucratic ‘regards’ idioms”




6. Essays by Jose Carillo Retrospective: “Dealing with questionable or downright wrong legalese,” Parts 1-3




7. My Media English Watch Retrospective: “Usage of the phrase ‘on the ground’ in official circles getting out of hand”




8. Advice and Dissent: “Did the historians who wrote books about the First Holy Mass celebrated in the Phillippines over 500 years ago ever consult one another precisely where in the archipelago it was celebrated?” - Parts 1-3





9. Language Humor at Its Finest: “Piecès de résistance in Hollywood moviemaking”




10. Notable Works By Our Very Own: “When books and life intersect” by Howie Severino, GMA-7




11. Your Thoughts Exactly: "A Prayer to St. Jude" by Angel Casillan, Forum Contributor



   
12. Readings in Language: “The triumph of English over Babel to become the language of science“




13. Time Out From English Grammar: “Sandro Botticelli's intricate paintings of woman's hair“




14. Essay by Jose Carillo Retrospective: “The grammar of manners”




15. The Forum Lounge Retrospective: “Oodles of reasons to love (or hate) the Philippines!“





30
Getting to Know English / “Preventing the word ‘only’ from going haywire”
« Last post by Joe Carillo on February 21, 2024, 09:03:05 AM »
Among nonnative English speakers, easily the most movable and most easily misplaced modifier is the word “only.” In any of its three roles as adjective, adverb, or conjunction, “only” can flit effortlessly from place to place, creating as many meanings as the number of positions it perches upon in the sentence. It is, in a word, the ultimate floating quantifier, either intensifying or diminishing the semantic degree of the nouns or verbs it modifies, at times neatly linking one clause to another of its kind, but in the process baffling linguists and students of the language for the last 200 years.

                   IMAGE CREDIT: WIKIHOW
THE WORD “ONLY” CREATES AS MANY MEANINGS AS THE POSITIONS
IT TAKES IN A SENTENCE, MAKING IT A VERY CONFUSING MODIFIER


Consider, for instance, the different meanings the word “only” creates by virtue of the five positions it takes in the following sentences:

   “Only I think Jennifer belongs to this league.” (“It’s only I that think Jennifer belongs to this league.”)

   “I only think Jennifer belongs to this league.” (“That’s the only thought I have at the moment: that Jennifer belongs to
        this league.”)

   “I think only Jennifer belongs to this league.” (“This is what I think: only Jennifer belongs to this league and no one else
        around here
.”

   “I think Jennifer belongs only to this league.” (“This is what I think: Jennifer belongs only to this league and to no other.”)

   “I think Jennifer belongs to this league only.” (“This is what I think: it is only to this league that Jennifer rightfully
        belongs
.”)

Then, after these five adjectival or adverbial roles, consider now how “only” works as a conjunction:

   In the role of “but”: “You may vote anyone you like, only vote wisely.”

   In the role of “yet”: “Jennifer looks lovely, only she’s already very much married.”

   In the role of “except” or “were it not that”: “I’d like to bring Jennifer to Baguio, only that she might enjoy the place so much
        and stay there the whole summer.”

Even without its role as a conjunctive, however, “only” would already be capable of creating so much ambiguity and semantic mischief if we are not careful. For instance, when describing a situation when we wanted to talk to a manager but only got as far as talking to his secretary, we probably would say “I saw only his secretary” or “I only saw his secretary,” either of which would adequately convey what happened. Then take note that a rather stilted way to say it, “I saw his secretary only,” even more faithfully describes what happened. Even so, the ambiguity remains.

The situation isn’t that bad in spoken usage, where “only” can be floated more freely without creating ambiguity. This is because a stronger stress can always be given to the word that the speaker wants “only” to modify, thus clearly establishing a clear intent and semantic linkage. We can see how this speech mechanism operates in the following spoken constructions, where the stressed words are shown in all-capital letters:

   “I only saw HIS SECRETARY.” (“I saw nobody else.”)

   “I only SAW his secretary.” (“Yes, I did see her, but I didn’t speak to her.”)   

Taking into account the pitfalls in using “only” as a floating modifier in written prose, language experts have come up with the following recommendation— to be safe, place “only” immediately before the phrase we want it to modify. This means that in the office situation we described earlier, for instance, the safest—but not necessarily the best-written construction to describe what happened is the first version: “I saw only his secretary.” With “only” coming right before the noun phrase it modifies, “his secretary,” the construction poses the least danger of ambiguity. When spoken, however, the most natural and most felicitous version is obviously this other one: “I only saw his secretary.” It’s much closer to the rhythm of speech, and it will be foolhardy for us to tinker with it simply to conform to the norms for edited or more formal prose.

For sure, there will be situations when written and spoken prose will clash head-on as to where to position “only” in a sentence. When this happens, we have to take recourse to what linguists call disambiguating qualifiers, or additional statements designed to clarify our meaning and eliminate ambiguity. This was the purpose of the parenthetical statements that accompanied the five “only”-usage examples that we took up earlier.

Those statements, of course, are not real disambiguating qualifiers because they are not part and parcel of the sentences themselves. A true disambiguating qualifier is integral to the statement, and already anticipates the ambiguity created when the main statement uses “only” as a floating quantifier. A good example is this: “I think only Jennifer belongs to this league; all the others simply fall short of the stringent requirements.”

In written prose, that use of the disambiguating qualifier “all the others simply fall short of the stringent requirements” is actually the surest, most elegant way of preventing the “only”-modified statement from going haywire.

Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in The Manila Times:
When the word “only” goes haywire

This essay appeared as Chapter 118 of my book Give Your English the Winning Edge, ©2009 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

(Next: When educators befuddle with their English)          February 29, 2024                                                                                              

Visit Jose Carillo’s English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com. You can follow me on Facebook and X (Twitter) and e-mail me at j8carillo@yahoo.com.
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