Messages

1

My Media English Watch / Re: When misinformation and wrong logic bedevil tourism reporting

« on: November 21, 2011, 12:52:43 AM »

My comment is not really about the poor way in which the Puerto Princesa story was written but about the distorted idea of the Philippines that the tourism industry spreads by describing the country as being one consisting of '7,200' islands. While this may be technically correct, basically it's utter nonsense. Most of these 'islands' are uninhabited rocks, or 'cartoon islands' with one or two coconut trees. The vast majority of Filipinos live on very large islands. I am from Ireland, an island smaller that Mindanao or Luzon. The latter is nearly as large as Britain. The Visayan islands are all large landmasses. For British and Irish people islands are small places, with few people living on them. 'Mainlanders' don't see themselves as islanders.

Islanders often travel by boat. I would guess that the vast majority of people in Luzon have never traveled by boat to another island.

Sorry for being slightly off topic but as one who has lived in the Philippines for 40 years and who has often traveled between large islands, I shake my head every time I hear the '7,200' or '7,100', whatever it is, nonsense.

2

My Media English Watch / Re: A flawed sentence from a news story about gays and lesbians in US military

« on: July 26, 2011, 07:56:04 PM »

There are only two sexes, male and female. One's orientation doesn't change one's sex no more than one's color does.

3

My Media English Watch / Re: Let’s be firm on whether the name “Philippines” is singular or plural

« on: July 26, 2011, 07:50:01 PM »

PS Ed Maranan, I'm from Ireland, where we use British English. Fr Sean Coyle.

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My Media English Watch / Re: Let’s be firm on whether the name “Philippines” is singular or plural

« on: July 26, 2011, 07:45:29 PM »

Philippines is singular. A colleague of mine who edits the Sunday Examiner, the English Catholic weekly in Hong Kong always give 'The Philippines', 'The' with a capital 't', as the name of the country, no matter where it occurs in the sentence .

To Ed Maranan: ‘The Antilles’ is not the name of a country but of a group of islands in the Caribbean that include, among others, Cuba, Jamaica and Puerto Rico. And the examples you give, ‘”Chelsea win!" "Manchester rally to win cup!" "England bow down to Azkals!"’ are correct usage in British English. However, I can understand your being unable to ‘accept, understand or appreciate’ this after 15 years in London because after 40 years in the Philippines I cannot bring myself to say ‘Good noon’ or ‘thanks God’!

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My Media English Watch / Re: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore

« on: April 02, 2011, 11:33:44 PM »

Thanks for the link. Perhaps the name 'Black Saturday' comes from the fact that the day, liturgically, is one of mourning and black was the color of mourning in the Catholic Church before Vatican II. Now violet is common and white is also used. Black vestments are seldom worn now at funerals, thogh that option is still there.

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My Media English Watch / Re: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore

« on: March 30, 2011, 11:58:41 AM »

I should have written "in a report".

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My Media English Watch / Re: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore

« on: March 30, 2011, 11:56:05 AM »

I just came across another misuse of "had" on a report in GMA News today: "Novicio said two China-based Filipino priests had been sent to Xiamen and Guangzhou to talk to the Filipino drug mules' kin.

"Two days na naroon ang pari at kinakausap ang families (The priests had been there two days and are talking to the families)," he said.

The "had" in the first sentence is correct but that in the translation of the Tagalog is incorrect. Since the priests "are talking to the families" they are still there. The translator/editor should have used "have".

8

My Media English Watch / Re: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore

« on: March 30, 2011, 11:36:38 AM »

This isn't a lapse in grammar by the media but by an official of PAGASA, as reported by CathNews Philippines today, Wet summer sets in, rainy Holy Week looms: “It is summer now. But like we said, this will be a wet summer so expect rains especially in the Visayas and Mindanao, which had been experiencing rains due to changes in weather systems,” the official said. We are still experiencing rains in the Visayas, so the official should have said "which have been experiencing . . ." This is a mistake I come across again and again in editing.

While I'm here, every year when Holy Week comes around, I find journalists writing about "the Lenten season", as if Holy Week and Lent were the same thing. They're not. Lent starts on Ash Wednesday and ends, in the Catholic Church, with the Chrism Mass on the morning of Holy Thursday. The Easter Triduum starts on Holy Thursday afternoon with the Mass of the Last Supper, "reaches its high point in the Easter Vigil, and closes with the evening prayer on Easter Sunday". The quote is from the Ordo, the Catholic Church's official liturgical calendar.

Another common mistake is references to "the Holy Week". It should be "Holy Week". I know that in Filipino languages it is called Ang Semana Santa but 'Ang' is not a direct equivalent of "the". In Filipino languages when you refer to a person's name you always put "Si" before it but there is no equivalent in English.

Though I've been in the Philippines since 1971 I still don't know why so many Filipinos refer to Holy Saturday as "Black Saturday". There's nothing wrong with the usage but where does it come from? The Ordo published by the CBCP refers to "Holy Saturday" and native English-speakers always refer to "Holy Saturday". The Spanish is "Sabado Santo", which translates as "Holy Saturday".

9

My Media English Watch / Re: Was Manila’s anti-Reproductive Health Bill rally interfaith or ecumenical?

« on: March 30, 2011, 11:16:06 AM »

The word 'interfaith', as you point out, involves an activity between persons of different faiths, e.g., Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc. 'Ecumenical', in the contrext you wrote about, refers to activities involving different Christian bodies, e.g., Catholics, Aglipayans, Methodists, etc.

The rally was advertised as 'an interfaith rally and the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Feast of the Annunciation and the Day of the Unborn on the 25th of March 2011, 4:00 PM at the Quirino Grandstand' on the Facebook of Bishop Broderick Pabillo, auxiliary bishop of Manila. The story giving the link to the bishop's Facebook was published in CathNews Philippines on March 21.

A story in CathNews Philippines on March 23, Anti-RH bill activities start in Manila, doesn't use the word 'interfaith'.

A report on CBCP News on March 24, Church set for protracted pro-life campaign, says, 'Thousands of pro-lifers are expected to attend the interfaith rally that will be held at the Quirino grandstand in Luneta on March 25'.

In CathNews Philippine's report for March 28, Thousands rally against birth-control in Manila, we read, 'Friday night’s mass was one of several activities lined up by the Catholic Church to oppose the RH bill.

'But one of the highlights of the program was an interfaith prayer against the RH bill led by religious leaders from the Catholic Church and even other faiths like Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.'

It is clear that an 'interfaith' rally, not an 'ecumenical' one, was advertized. To what extent the rally was genuinely interfaith is a matter of judgment.

As a Catholic priest I am totally opposed to the celebration of Mass in the context of any rally, no matter how noble its aim may be. I also think it improper to celebrate Mass in either an interfaith or ecumenical context since people of other faiths and Christians of other denominations may not fully participate in it.

10

Use and Misuse / Re: "Owner-Type Jeep" and "Bureau of Fire Protection"

« on: November 07, 2010, 04:27:41 PM »

Thanks for clarifying how the term "owner-type" jeep came about. I always thought it was in contrast to a military jeep. It's a particularly silly term.

Fr Sean Coyle

11

Use and Misuse / Re: Some common mistakes in English writing

« on: November 07, 2010, 04:23:36 PM »

Thanks for your reply to my email. When I became editor of Misyon in 2002 I asked a journalist on the Sunday Business Post, published in Ireland, about 'correct' usage. He told me that each paper has its own style and rules. Publications in Ireland, Britain, Australia and New Zealand follow British usage generally while those here and in the USA use American English. In Canada they use a mixture of both, as far as I know. Having lived in Ireland, the USA, Philippines, Canada and Britain I'm sometimes confused about the spelling of certain words such as 'surprise' or 'surprize' and other words that end in 'ise' or 'ize' and also about words such as 'windshield', the British usage for 'windscreen'.

I accept your point about Philippine usage with regard to 'arriving at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport' even though I would never write that myself nor do I think that 'he arrived at the Heathrow Airport' would be accepted outside this country. However, it is an area where the writer's 'feel' for language comes into place. I would be inclined to write 'He went to the University of San Carlos' because it 'runs' better than 'He went to University of San Carlos'. Yet I would write 'He went to USC' and not 'He went to the USC'.

With regard to quotation marks, British usage allows both, single or double, using the opposite for a quotation within a quotation. I checked today's Irish Independent online and found double quotation marks in one article and single in another.

I've moved towards placing the period or full stop at the end of quotation where logic dictates it should be. I'm not always consistent.

I still think that the convention in American English of using the period at the end of an abbreviation such as 'Mr." is curiously old-fashioned, though correct. It is strange that the country that gave us 'plow' as an alternative to 'plough' and 'labor' instead of 'labour' still sticks to the period where British English has largely, though not totally, discarded it. However, this is not a question of correct or incorrect. For me it's also a question of aesthetics. To me 'Mr Carillo' looks better than 'Mr. Carillo'.

The Dominican Province of the Philippines have a family magazine - I can't remember the title - that doesn't use the period at the end of abbreviations, so I'm not a lone voice. However, I stress that this is not a matter of correct and incorrect. Language is living and would never change or grow if writers and editors didn't make choices.

The closing paragraph of former Chief Justice Panganiban's column, With Due Respect, in today's PDI reads:

As a footnote, may I add that the inquisitorial system is still regularly used in many countries. On the other hand, the adversarial system was introduced to the Philippines by the Americans at the dawn of the 20th century and had been used regularly since the Supreme Court was founded in 1901. As an exception, contempt cases initiated by the judges themselves had always been decided via the inquisitorial method.

Surely 'has' should have been used instead of 'had' since Artemio V. Panganiban was explaining the difference between the adversarial system and the inquisitorial system and when the Supreme Court uses each. 'Had' seems to imply that the Court no longer uses either system.

Thank you for reading this.

Fr Sean Coyle