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Topics - Miss Mae

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61
Badly Written, Badly Spoken / "Meantime" and "meanwhile"
« on: March 24, 2014, 03:03:29 PM »
Can 'meantime' be uttered at the beginning of a sentence?

That's what the sportscaster I had a crush on said this morning. Shouldn't it have been 'in the meantime' if that adverb would be used at the start of a sentence?

62
Use and Misuse / Is "been" necessary?
« on: March 10, 2014, 03:38:27 PM »
I can't remember anymore when and where exactly I've got this idea, but I still hesitate every time I add been to has, have, and had. Should writers really refrain from doing so, Mr. Carillo?

63
Badly Written, Badly Spoken / Two subordinate clauses in a row
« on: February 23, 2014, 03:44:04 PM »
Is there a rule or something on using subordinate clauses more than once in a sentence?

"Bronchial asthma is common among children but adults are not exempted although the latter can deal with it more responsibly than the former." ~weekly newspaper

64
Is the parenthetical here necessary?

For all it's contradictions--maybe even because of them--the region has something for everyone.
~from a government web portal

65
Use and Misuse / The Kinds of English
« on: December 28, 2013, 02:14:31 PM »
It seems that I have more than my grammatical lapses to think of in my quest for achieving good English.

As you had pointed out, the reason I have thought something was amiss in the sentence below is that it is constructed in British English meant for British English-speaking readers.

Some staffed foreign NGOs, often in the area of women’s health, which organizations the Taliban permitted to continue.

So would it be wise if we just stick to one kind of English? Globalization is just around the corner, after all...

66
Your Thoughts Exactly / State of RA 10354 a year after
« on: December 20, 2013, 08:38:51 PM »
I still don’t agree with Republic Act 10354. It would just let Filipino men to take for granted what they should have been responsible for in the first place, and give the current administration an excuse if it fails to provide Filipino children proper care and nutrition as well as give them special protection from “all forms of neglect, abuse, cruelty, exploitation, and other conditions.” Under this law, industries are not liable anymore if they are not compensating their workers justly provided their policies and programs in relation to reproductive health are all correct.

But I also don’t agree that that law should be prevented. There may be no other way for some Filipinos to realize that no method of contraception could curb the Filipino population—other than through direct communication between partners, which is what my high school teacher and her husband do whenever they lie beside each other in bed at night.

The Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012, which is RA 10354 spelled out in full , regards overpopulation as the reason why there are Filipinos who experience discrimination and retrogression. It defines “responsible parenthood” as the will and ability of parents to sustain their family, and “reproductive health” as one’s awareness in all matters relating to the reproductive system. This law makes it the State’s duty to protect and strengthen its citizens so that everyone will have a chance to live in a “balanced and healthful environment in accord with the rhythm and harmony of nature.”

A news website and a daily newspaper in the Philippines have summed RA 10354 as a law that would provide universal access to reproductive health care services and information, including the use of condoms and pills. It would also give precedence to the poor households that the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction had identified.

Contraceptives are not abortifacients anyway. Article II, Section 12 of the Constitution also requires the State to “equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.” Adults would still be free to reject information relating to reproductive health provided by the government “for whatever personal reason which may or may not be related to their religious beliefs.”

Environmental degradation in the Philippines is also aggravated by a high annual population growth rate. There are other factors, of course—loss of agricultural lands, deforestation, soil erosion, air and water pollution, improper disposal of solid and toxic wastes, loss of coral reefs, mismanagement and abuse of coastal resources, and overfishing—but most of the warming could still be traced to greenhouse gas concentrations from human activities.

The country did something about this by signing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on June 12, 1992. Hot temperatures will become frequent in 2020 and 2050 as well heavy daily rainfall. Limiting life will actually help free the succeeding generations from the outbreak and spread of water-based and vector-borne diseases, pulmonary illnesses, cardiovascular diseases, and other forms of health risk from poor air quality.

TIMELINE

•   December 21, 2012: PNoy signed the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012.
•   December 29, 2012: The Malacañang announced its passage.
•   January 1, 2013: James Imbong, son of the legal counsel of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), and his wife, Jo Aurea Imbong, asked the Supreme Court to declare RA 10354 unconstitutional.
•   January 29, 2013: In the “CBCP Pastoral Statement on Certain Social Issues of Today,” the bishops warned Filipinos of “social and political storms” and criticized PNoy for not pushing for the passage of the Freedom of Information Bill. They also denounced the existence of political dynasties, the deepening culture of impunity, the unabated extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances, and worsening poverty.
•   February 22, 2013: The World Socialist Web Site opined that the Philippines’ reproductive health bill will continue to hold that abortion is illegal.
•   March 5, 2013: The Supreme Court deferred issuing a temporary restraining order against the implementation of RA 10354.
•   March 7, 2013: CBCP president and Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma and some 10 other bishops dined with PNoy in Malacañang. The latter was reported to have made a peace offering to them.
•   March 16, 2013: The Department of Health (DOH) finalized the implementing rules and regulations of RA 10354.
•   March 18, 2013: Several Catholic priests attempted to revive their campaign against it. The Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 10354 (The Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012) were also published.
•   March 18, 2013: Pro-RH advocates plan to embark on a nationwide campaign, “Purple Vote,” the following week to encourage voters to choose pro-RH candidates during the May election.
•   March 19, 2013:  The Supreme Court  votes 10-5 for 1 120-day postponement of RA 10354. Those who voted for the SQA order were Associate Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Teresita Leonardo-De Castro, Arturo Brion, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Roberto Abad, Martin Villarama Jr., Jose Perez, Jose Mendoza and Bienvenido Reyes. Those who dissented were Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Aranal-Sereno, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, Justice Mariano Del Castillo, Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe, and Justice Marvic Leonen.
•   March 21, 2013: The CBCP announced its plan to launch a more active campaign against the RH law.
•   March 22, 2013: Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles expressed his fears that Malacañang would pressure the Supreme Court justices to approve RA 10354.
•   March 26, 2013: Senatorial bet and former congressman Ana Theresa Hontiveros asked the Supreme Court to lift its status quo ante order restraining Malacanang from enforcing RA 10354.
•   April 2, 2013: The Supreme Court junked the 25-page motion for reconsideration filed by former Akbayan party-list Rep. Risa Hontiveros.
•   May 24, 2013: Sen. Pia Cayetano asked the Supreme Court to lift the status quo ante order it issued on February that indefinitely suspended the implementation of Republic Act 10354. Cayetano, who sponsored the measure in the Senate, also asked the SC to dismiss the 10 consolidated petitions questioning the constitutionality of the law. Through her counsel, UP law professor Harry Roque Jr., the senator said the RH law does not violate the constitutional freedom of choice and right to privacy. The high court set to hear the case on June 18, 2013.
•   June 1, 2013: The Catholics for Reproductive Health and Interfaith Partnership for the Promotion of Responsible Parenthood Inc., led by women’s rights lawyer Claire Padilla, asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the petitions and instead declare the assailed law as constitutional. She was joined by Zahria Mapandi, a Muslim mother and executive director of Al-Mujadillah Development Foundation Inc.
•   June 4, 2013: The Couples for Christ Foundation for Family and Life (CFC FFL) filed the 12th petition through its lawyer, Luis Francis Rodrigo Jr., asking the Supreme Court (SC) to declare Republic Act No. 10354 as unconstitutional.
•   June 4, 2013: The oral argument scheduled on June 18 was reset to July 9, and the SC summons lawyers of all the parties to a preliminary conference on June 6.
•   June 6, 2013: Preliminary conference held among 12 groups that are anti-RH and six groups that are pro-RH.
•   July 9, 2013: Critics and advocates of RA 10354 face off in a debate before the Supreme Court on the legality of the RH law.
•   August 6, 2013: The government, through Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza, defended RA 10354 before the Supreme Court.
•   August 16, 2013: Sacred Theology professor Fr. Yulito Ignacio (Fr. Itoy, as he is known to many) lamented during a gathering of some Marian devotees at Our Lady of Carmel Church the none-too-subtle attack on institutionalized religion in the Philippines, specifically on the Catholic Church and its teachings
•   August 17, 2013: Sacred Theology professor Fr. Yulito Ignacio decried what he called the half-true reportage about the RH Law oral debates in the Supreme Court (SC).

67
Badly Written, Badly Spoken / Omitted what?
« on: December 19, 2013, 01:23:42 PM »
I could only guess that the words are and the are missing in here. Right?

Some staffed foreign NGOs, often in the area of women's health, which organizations the Taliban permitted to continue. (Gayle Tzemach Lennon, "The Dressmaker of Khair Khana")


68
Badly Written, Badly Spoken / Ongoing vs. On Going
« on: December 16, 2013, 08:44:48 PM »
In my work online, I have a colleague who describes the tasks she is still doing to be “on going.” I had wanted to call her attention right when she had started doing that, but stopped myself thinking I should do more than look for the said word in an online dictionary. Unfortunately, my plan got postponed again and again until such time that another one of my colleagues started labeling the assignments she is still working on as "on going," too. Would I be right to prevent them from doing so again?

69
Your Thoughts Exactly / My Thoughts on PWDs this 2013
« on: November 30, 2013, 02:51:03 PM »
For a country lying astride the typhoon belt, in the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” and in between the Pacific and Eurasian tectonic plates, the Philippines must work on its disaster risk- reduction for people with disabilities (PWDs) like me.

And why not? During a conference on disaster- risk reduction in Cagayan De Oro last year, it was affirmed that “…PWDs are more vulnerable to disasters than others.” There are about 10 million PWDs in the country1, with some 5 million aged 60 years and over and 5 million aged 49 years old and below. There is one PWD in every 20 households in the Philippines, and one in three of them actually heads a household.

But there are no figures to tell how many PWDs suffered in the typhoons, floods, landslides, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis that devastated the Philippines. There were initial reports that more than 10,000 Filipinos had died following the passage of the Typhoon Haiyan, but they were unconfirmed since many of the ravaged islands were still cut off and unable to communicate with the rest of the world2.

It is thus important to learn sign language even by those who do not have disabilities. For more than a person’s right to live, which is what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserted, is a person’s necessity for the kind of justice the Article XIII, Section 1 of the 1987 Constitution3 calls for.

Sign language is also beneficial because it could instill awareness about the “social problem” physical disability has come to be4. It is likewise practicable because a PWD-friendly culture in the Philippines could turn the country more appealing to every local or foreign PWD in the cheapest way possible5.

Language and Behavior

Language shapes thinking. It can “profoundly affect” how a person perceives the world, as well as limit or enhance certain events and interactions, according to cognitive scientists and rhetoricians6.

Language can also influence even the most fundamental abilities of human experience. It can mold the way one thinks about many aspects of the world (based on an empirical evidence), being a part and parcel of many more aspects of thought than was previously realized7.

The Philippines’ commitment to disaster- risk reduction then would work better if it would consider teaching sign language in all levels of schools in the country. Remember: a disaster’s severity depends on how much impact a hazard may cause on a society and environment. The scale of this impact, in turn, would vary on what is taught in schools. If every Filipino individual, family, community and institution would learn how to speak in sign language, we could become more resilient to disasters.

This year the focus of the International Day for Disaster Reduction is on some one billion people around the world who live with some form of disability. (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

1Based on the estimate of the World Health Organization
2As of this writing
3The Congress shall give highest priority to the enactment of measures that protect and enhance the right of all the people to human dignity, reduce social, economic, and political inequalities, and remove cultural inequities by equitably diffusing wealth and political power for the common good.
4There are already 36 PWD organizations listed in the directory of the National Council on Disability Affairs to date. Each of them aims to help PWDs in their living, providing seminars and workshops on one hand, and giving wheelchairs, crutches, and hearing aids on the other. Some also would conduct free medical and dental services; administer centers and schools advocating PWD rights; and train deaf high school graduates in computer technology. But a budget airline recently disallowed a “special” child in its aircraft; a first-class city within the National Capital Region (NCR) shut down its school for deaf children; and the textbooks that could let the blind and partially-sighted people to read and write though touch were considered even though they can neither be produced locally nor translated in Filipino.
5There are 650 million PWDs in the world, 49.7 million of them resides in the country with the largest economy in the world to date (United States) while 21,894 lives in the country with a small and least developed economy (Bhutan).
6This is according to a study conducted by Dan Erwin, a specialist in performance improvement who holds a seminary degree (M. Div.) as well as a Ph.D. in communication studies from the University of Minnesota.
7This is according to a research of Lera Boroditsky, an assistant professor of cognitive psychology at Stanford University and editor-in-chief of Frontiers in Cultural Psychology.

70
Use and Misuse / Omitting "that"
« on: November 28, 2013, 02:20:42 PM »
Is it a writer's prerogative to do so?

71
Why should there be an in between the words "speaking" and "English" in the second sentence but nothing between the same words in the first sentence?

The last time I was heard speaking English fluently was when my grade-school assistant principal visited me in the ICU.

But that incident made me conscious of a divide between Filipinos who prefer speaking in English and those who prefer speaking in Tagalog.

72
Your Thoughts Exactly / When speaking in English becomes a problem
« on: October 27, 2013, 12:20:04 AM »
At first it didn’t occur to me that speaking in English could be a problem.

I can speak in English whenever necessary. But that was before. Before my first brain operation. The last time I was heard speaking English fluently was when my grade-school assistant principal visited me in the ICU (I wasn’t fully conscious then so I learned about this only later). Then again after my embolization. Then again after another medical procedure. Then again after another…

So I ended up talking in Taglish. It is Tagalog and American English combined, and I didn’t think it an issue until I went to college. Fusing them could be a way to colonize the Philippines' former colonizers , a friend had said. I didn’t have a better argument so I went along with the idea halfheartedly.

I then would speak in Tagalog only when the situation called for it, and would speak straight English the best I can when talking to non-Filipinos. Still, I couldn’t wave off the thought that I was disrespecting the two languages. English did not originate from America, and Tagalog is a language the Filipinos had fought for. Yet, if there are right and noble reasons for mixing them, why then do some Filipinos themselves disfavor speaking in Taglish?

I discovered the answer to that recently.

About 140 kilometers away from the city where I live is Dubai. It is the “tourist paradise” of the United Arab Emirates, what with its attractive buildings, beaches, and gardens. Our first stop was Ikea, a furniture shop offering Swedish breakfast on its upper level at a fraction of its usual cost in other restaurants.

Tired and hungry, my two friends and I took a minute before realizing that the elevator we took was not moving. “You have to push the button,” the lady behind me said. She had blond hair and was wearing staff uniform.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” my friend said. “We’re just so excited after our two-hour ride from Al Ain. How about you? Where are you from?”

“Batangas,” the lady answered in the familiar diction of people who hail from that province. She covered her mouth immediately afterwards, though, and hurriedly walked out of the elevator that had opened up just then.

I really have nothing against Filipinos from Batangas. It was only much later, in fact, that I I realized how uncouth that lady in the elevator had behaved despite being a member of the shop’s staff. But that incident made me conscious of a divide between Filipinos who prefer speaking in English and those who prefer speaking in Tagalog. It made me realize that English has become a medium to discriminate against Filipinos who can’t speak it, and that Taglish has become the tool for some Filipinos to level the playing field, so to speak. Speaking in Taglish, after all, could give them a chance to still communicate with their English-speaking countrymen.

For that reason, I have decided to discontinue using English when talking with my fellow Filipinos verbally. I will do so until such time that most of my countrymen can properly use English as the global language that it is—a means to make themselves understood wherever they might be in the world.

73
Do you think this sentence needs that?

Northern Light Infantry pay stubs and ID cards Indian later claimed to have found on dead soldiers insinuate a different story.
(Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin)

It could have been -

Northern Light Infantry pay stubs and ID cards that Indian later claimed to have found on dead soldiers insinuate a different story. (Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin)

74
Badly Written, Badly Spoken / Percent and percentages
« on: October 02, 2013, 03:59:50 PM »
There’s this quote from a news report of The Manila Times that haunted me. I put the subject in italics and the predicate in boldface.

Quote
At least 91 percent of DAP releases for 2011 and 2012 was channeled to projects under various government agencies and local government units. Only nine percent of total DAP releases for the same period was released to projects identified by legislators,” the DBM [Department of Budget and Management] said.

But if you're referring to a percentage, what determines the verb that should be used is its object, right? And since the object is the “DAP releases for 2011 and 2012,” the verb should have been “were channeled.” Right?


75
If there can be ways to keep paragraphs flowing, how can writers properly stop them?

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