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Site Announcements / Playlist Update (April 20 - 26, 2024) of Jose Carillo Forum's Facebook Gateway
« Last post by Joe Carillo on April 24, 2024, 01:39:47 PM »
PLAYLIST UPDATE FOR APRIL 20 - 26, 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: “When saying it once isn’t enough”




2. Going Deeper Into Language Retrospective: “Teaching our children to think logically”


                                         
                                     
3. You Asked Me This Question: “How present simple sentences differ from present continuous sentences”




4. Essay by Jose Carillo: “Avoiding the embarrassing pitfall of misusing certain English words”




5. You Asked Me This Question: “Why many young writers prefer ‘beneath’ to ‘under’ or ‘below,’” an e-mail conversation with Krip Yuson, Palanca Awards Hall of Famer and Philippine Star columnist




6. Students’ Sounding Board: “Differentiating the use of ‘than’ and ‘than that of’”




7. Essay by Jose A. Carillo: “A father’s letter to his son's teacher”




8. Your Thoughts Exactly: “Whatever became of ‘Fine!’, ‘You’re Welcome!’, and ‘Dead’?,” an essay on evolving English usage by Isabel Escoda, Forum Contributor




9. Language Humor At Its Finest: “24 incautious quotes or misquotes from visionears or the foresightless"




10. Advice and Dissent: “Grammar poll on a contentious subject-verb agreement disagreement”




11. Reading in Language: A review of Ed Simon’s “In Praise of the Long, Complicated Sentence”




12. Time Out From English Grammar: “Is it true that we're just an impurity in an otherwise beautiful universe?”




13. A Forum Lounge Sharing: “Verbatim: What is a photocopier?”




14. Time Out From English Grammar: “U.S. math professor stumbles on ancient Babylonian trick to solve quadratics”



 
15. A Forum Lounge Retrospective: “Just a few minutes of undiluted joy!”






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Essays by Joe Carillo / When saying it once isn’t enough
« Last post by Joe Carillo on April 24, 2024, 11:21:40 AM »
Each one of us wants to make a deep impression on our readers or listeners. Whether we are a teacher teaching an inattentive, rowdy, or recalcitrant class; a priest or preacher preaching to a flock of insensate, glassy-eyed believers; a lawyer making logical or semantic convolutions to convince judge or jury that a guilty defendant is innocent; an advertising person hawking an old, jaded product as something excitingly new; or a ward leader trying to pass off a thoroughly unworthy candidate as the best there is for an elective post, we will always want to emphasize the things we want to be accepted as true and de-emphasize those we want to be rejected as untrue. The objective is the same in all cases: to convince the audience of the wisdom of the position we have taken, whether we are speaking with the light of truth or with a forked tongue.


                           IMAGE CREDIT: PINTEREST.COM
Filipina classroom teacher interacting with her pupils

The easiest way to emphasize things, of course, is to embellish them with such off-the-rack qualifiers as “new and improved,” “the one and only,” “especially,” “particularly,” “most of all,” and “the best choice,” as in this sentence: “X Facial Cream is especially designed for tropical use, but best of all, it gives 100% expert conditioning for crease-free cheeks.” As tools to snare the unthinking mind, however, such self-serving adverbs could be persuasive for at most only one or two hatchet jobs apiece. Discerning audiences can only take so much of words that demand acceptance not on the basis of logic but on blind faith.

A much better way to emphasize the things that we deem important is creative repetition. This is the technique of repeating in speech or in writing the same letters, syllables, or sounds; the same words; the same clauses or phrases; or the same ideas and patterns of thought. When done just right, this time-tested rhetorical strategy beats most other devices for achieving emphasis, clarity, retention and emotional punch.

Just to see how this strategy works, take a look again at how the first paragraph of this column tried to hook you to the subject of repetition. In the first sentence, the word-pair “teacher teaching” deliberately repeated the first syllable “teach”; the phrase “a priest or preacher preaching” used the “pr-” sound thrice and the syllable “preach” twice (this figure of speech is known as alliteration); the phrase “judge or jury” repeated the first syllable “ju-” sound (alliteration, again); and the five clauses that carry the examples of people wanting to make a great impression repeated the same structure and pattern of thought (parallelism). This reiteration of the same grammar and semantic patterns certainly didn’t come by accident; those patterns were intentionally constructed in the hope of making a human-interest appeal strong enough to make the reader read on. (Did they succeed? You be the judge.)

A staple device to achieve emphasis by repetition, of course, is to use the same key word or idea in a series, as in this statement: “At Village X, enjoy cosmopolitan living with a touch of country: a life with all the amenities but without the inconveniences of the big city, a life amidst lush farmlands fringed by pristine mountain and lake, a life that someone of good taste who has definitely arrived truly deserves.” (Recall from a recent lesson in this column that “a life” here functions as a resumptive modifier.) The repeated use of the key words “a life” emphasizes the promise of “cosmopolitan living with a touch of country,” progressively building up the imagery and giving it a strong emotional appeal. This kind of repetition is actually what most advertising in the mass media routinely uses to persuade us, for good or ill.

Even more powerful than simply repeating key words or phrases is suddenly breaking that pattern once it is established: “Airline X is first in passenger comfort and amenities, first in both in-flight and ground service, and last in delayed departures and arrivals.” The disruption by the word “last” of our expectation of a series of all “firsts” dramatizes the airline’s claim of being the industry leader in flight reliability. It’s a neat semantic device that rarely fails to catch immediate attention.

Persuasion by repetition is a powerful device for inducing audiences to identify, recognize, and respond to our messages, but we have to do it with an eye and ear and feel for words and sentence structure. Uncreative repetitions, like the ones that regularly assault us during election campaigns, are too predictable, awkward, tedious, and boring—if not downright untruthful. But when done purposively and competently, like the mesmerizing prayers and chants that we live by and the melodious songs, poems, mottos, and credos we love to sing or recite ad infinitum, repetition could shape our beliefs and likes and dislikes for life, Pavlov-like and unalterable. (This essay first appeared in this column on March 8, 2004)

Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in The Manila Times:
When saying it once isn’t enough

(Next: Using nondiscriminatory language)        April 25, 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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Site Announcements / The Forum’s Intensive 5-Part Review of Parallelism in English Writing
« Last post by Joe Carillo on April 22, 2024, 06:19:07 PM »
April 22, 2024

Dear Forum Member and Friend,

This fourth week of April, Jose Carillo’s English Forum is presenting a 5-part intensive review of parallelism in English writing. By parallelism, of course, we mean the orderly positioning of identical syntactical elements in English prose to ensure clarity and ease in reading comprehension. Writers and editors alike need perpetual vigilance and continuous honing of their skills in setting all grammatical elements of a sentence in the same form and structure. This parallelism goal applies to all parts of speech, from articles and prepositions to nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs and to infinitives, gerunds, and participles. Scrupulous adherence to the parallelism rule ultimately determines the readability and persuasiveness of the composition.


Go to the Homepage of Jose Carillo's English Forum now by simply clicking this link: https://josecarilloforum.com/. After reading the Introduction, you can do each part of the review separately at your own pace by clicking its link until you’re done all with all four parts.

Good luck in your continuing personal quest for better English!

Sincerely yours,
Joe Carillo
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Lounge / English grammar proficiency test for Journalism and Mass Comm majors?
« Last post by Gerry T. Galacio on April 22, 2024, 07:57:17 AM »
 Index: A. Introduction: Carabao English of journalism interns; Poor grammar erodes media credibility (1998 American Society of News Editors study); B. Philippine media and bad grammar; college entrance requirements for Journalism majors; C. The University of North Carolina (UNC) Hussman School of Journalism and its famous grammar test; Pros and cons of requiring Journalism majors to pass either an entrance exam or an exit exam on English grammar proficiency

A. Introduction: Carabao English of journalism interns; Poor grammar erodes media credibility (1998 American Society of News Editors study); Most introductory college news writing professors spend the first third of the semester reviewing basic grammar rules; College writing instructors say students do not understand basic grammar concepts

1. From "No more 'carabao" English, please!" by Tita Valderama (The Manila Times, 2018) at https://www.manilatimes.net/2018/02/12/opinion/analysis/no-carabao-english-please/379638

"In the five years that I’ve been handling the journalism internship of the Manila Times, I have encountered student applicants who presented impressive resumes but could not express themselves in English and could hardly write a sensible essay on current issues. The problem is not substance but basic English grammar. And these students would soon be graduating in courses like AB English, Communication, and Journalism. Sometimes I wonder aloud how they passed elementary school when English is a subject from the primary years, or even pre-school."

2. Poor grammar erodes media credibility (1998 American Society of News Editors study)

From "Taking our Measure" (Washington Post, 1998) at https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1998/12/20/taking-our-measure/1c6fe097-efed-48d9-bc03-a845a9bac047/

"The [American Society of Newspaper Editors] study, 'Why Newspaper Credibility Has Been Dropping,' offers six major findings about 'the underlying causes of the disconnect' between journalists and their audiences.' What the 3,000 respondents from around the country had to say is pretty much what Post readers have been telling me in calls, letters and e-mail messages."

"Finding No. 1: 'The public sees too many factual errors and spelling or grammar mistakes in newspapers. Twenty-one percent of readers surveyed complained that they come across mistakes in spelling and grammar every day."

The study titled "Accuracy Matters: A Cross-Market Assessment of Newspaper Error and Credibility" (September 2005 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly) says:

"... frequency of errors was cited as a major reason why the public is increasingly skeptical of what it reads. Also drawing from focus groups, ASNE researchers posit: 'Even seemingly small errors feed public skepticism about a newspaper’s credibility. Each misspelled word, bad apostrophe, garbled grammatical construction, weird cutline and mislabeled map erodes public confidence in a newspaper’s ability to get anything right.'"

[Boldfacing supplied]

3. From “Spelling and Grammar – Their Importance to Journalism: What Journalism Schools Are Doing” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism (Ottawa, Ontario, August 16-19, 1975) at https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED120738.pdf

"With increasing enrollments in journalism, many journalism instructors contend that problems of spelling, grammar, usage, and punctuation are particularly acute. Some of the questions raised at recent gatherings include: Are formal rules of English  grammar dying? Is proper punctuation mere pedantry? What can journalism schools do about grammar and spelling problems?"

4. From "The Journalism Writing Course: Evaluation of Hybrid vs. Online Grammar Instruction" by Jensen Moore, University of Oklahoma, and Khristen Jones (Journalism & Mass Communication Educator · March 2014):

"While recent research suggests the skills needed to survive in today’s multimedia journalism industries have changed, one thing remains the same – the need for skills in grammar, spelling and  punctuation. In the early 80s and 90s journalism schools were instructed to increase the number of hours spent teaching these skills as students often entered the work force unprepared due to lack of emphasis journalism schools placed on grammar and writing.

"Almost two decades later this trend has continued. The 2011 American Society of News Editors Industry Challenges and Opportunity report posited both print and online news editors felt writing quality and editing were 'cornerstones' of what journalists do. However, employers currently state new graduates do not have basic grammar, punctuation or writing skills and seem to believe the fault for this lies within universities.

"In addition, recent studies indicate instructors and journalists agree grammar and writing are the most
important skills needed, while most journalism employers stress these skills are most important when making hiring decisions.

"A 2003 ACT National Curriculum Survey found, in general, college professors believed grammar and writing skills to be of high importance for students entering college, while high school teachers found the same skill sets to be least important. Stone suggested the disparity in emphasis on writing between high school and college causes most introductory college news writing professors to
spend the first third of the semester reviewing basic grammar rules, which detracts from the true purpose of the course. Thus, grammar and grammar instruction remain a large problem for many
journalism schools, even though these skills continue to be viewed as keys 'to success in college and beyond.' This creates a problem for students when they transition from journalism school into the workforce."

[Boldfacing supplied]

5. From "I'll Take Commas for $200": An Instructional Intervention Using Games to Help Students Master Grammar Skills by Sue Burzynski Bullard and Nancy Anderson (February 2014 Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 69(1):5-16):

"Effective writing requires mastering grammar. For journalists, this mastery is critical because research shows poor grammar erodes media credibility. College writing instructors say students do not understand basic grammar concepts, and greater numbers of students are enrolling in remedial writing classes. This quasi-experimental mixed methods study examines whether using games to teach basic grammar skills helps college students understand and retain grammar concepts. It also examines student perceptions of learning."

6. From "Grammar and cognitive processing of news articles: Exploring dual processing theories" by Alyssa Appelman (University of Kansas, July 2009):

"This study considers the impact of grammatical errors on cognitive processing and subsequent evaluation of news articles. It begins with an examination of the Elaboration Likelihood Model, the Heuristic-Systematic Processing Model, and grammar-related research. An experiment then tests the impact of grammatical errors on measures of cognitive processing. Participants read articles with varying levels of grammatical error and answer questions to reveal cognitive processing. The results show that grammatical errors in news articles are associated with high mental effort, low retention, and low perceived credibility. These measures indicate that grammatical errors are associated with deep processing of news articles. This study recommends that journalists focus more of their attention on fixing grammatical errors, as doing so will provide a better service to their readers."

[Boldfacing supplied]

7. From "Assessing Student Written Communications Skills: A Gateway Writing Proficiency Test for Aspiring Journalism Majors." by Brocato, Furr, and Horton, College Student Journal (Vol. 39, Issue 3)

"Faculty at this rural open-admissions university became increasingly concerned each semester about the inability of many journalism majors to write competently. This poor writing was evident in correctness, content, and coherence."

8. From "Journalism skills you need to get into the sector" at https://www.brightnetwork.co.uk/career-path-guides/journalism-publishing/journalism-skills-you-need-get-sector/

"Communication skills: It doesn’t matter if you’re a broadcast Journalist, reporter or magazine journalist, any journalism role requires top-notch verbal and written communication skills. This will be needed for interviews, finding new sources and working in a fast-paced newsroom."

"Knowledge of English language and grammar: Journalists spend a lot of time writing and are expected to edit their work to a high standard."

9. From "Journalism News Writing Skills: Grammar and Style Rules" at https://www.universalclass.com/articles/writing/news-writing-grammar-and-style-rules-in-journalism.htm

"Before you can be a good journalist, you must first be a good writer. This means you must know how to put words together so that they make sense, flow, and are correctly punctuated. Another important element of news writing is grammar and style. Grammar is the structure of the writing that takes into account the syntax and linguistics, while style is the writing's distinctive appearance and sound. Grammar is decided according to hard and fast rules, but style is more personal and puts your mark on the piece of work ...

"There are few things that will turn a reader away quicker than poor writing. Grammar is the most basic example of this: When words are misspelled, or there is a mismatch between nouns and the proper tense of verbs, or you have used punctuation incorrectly – you are going to lose your audience faster than if you wrote something that offended them on a personal level. Why? Because they'll never get to a point where they will read the content. Poor grammar marks you as an amateur, and you won't be long for the newsroom with that label!"

B. Philippine media and bad grammar; college entrance requirements for Journalism majors; Advanced English courses in DepEd's Special Program in Journalism

1. This forum has a section titled "My Media English Watch" at https://josecarilloforum.com/mediawatch.html which is a "dragnet for bad or questionable English usage in both the print media and broadcast media, thus giving more teeth to our campaign to encourage them to continuously improve their English."

Started in 2009, this section has around 200 posts. The latest post is "Wrong word usage and verbosity in journalism - 3" at https://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8323.0

2. Based on a cursory Google search, colleges of Journalism or Mass Communications in the Philippines don't seem to require students to pass an entrance test or exit test on English grammar proficiency.

The UP College of Mass Communications requires Journalism students to take English 10 ("critical reading of basic forms of academic discourse essential to university work") and English 11 ("literary genres") before they can enroll in more advanced journalism subjects.

The Journalism program in Polytechnic University of the Philippines requires that students must have at least 85% in English and Filipino subjects" and "have passed the interview and tests on writing skills and other talents."

The Manila Times College School of Journalism requires students to show above average English proficiency by submitting a three-page essay on the topic "Why I Want To Be a Journalist.")

3. The DepEd's curriculum for Special Program in Journalism includes "Advanced English" throughout the program's four year duration.

Advanced English I: The course will further develop the learners’ language proficiency to equip them with the enabling tools in journalistic writing.

Advanced English II: The course will further develop the learners’ skills in speech development and public speaking.

Advanced English IIII: The course will further develop the learners’ skills in technical writing and research.

Advanced English IV: The course will provide the learners complete exposure and hands–on experience in the actual workplace.

Does "Advanced English I" include the study or mastery of English grammar?

C. The University of North Carolina (UNC) Hussman School of Journalism and its famous grammar test; Pros and cons of requiring Journalism majors to pass either an entrance exam or an exit exam in English grammar proficiency

1. The University of North Carolina (UNC) Hussman School of Journalism and its famous grammar exit test

Since 1975, the school has required students to pass the test with a grade of 70 or better. The passing grade remains at 70.

From Wikipedia:

"The UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media (locally regarded as 'the J school') is a nationally accredited professional undergraduate and graduate level journalism school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The school, founded in 1950, is ranked competitively among the best journalism schools in the United States."

"[In 1969, John B. 'Jack' Adams took over as dean and his] tenure included the implementation of the spelling and grammar test developed by faculty members Tom Bowers and Richard Cole. The test still is required of all students to graduate with a journalism degree. On Feb. 1, 1975, NBC News aired a report about the test on a national television newscast."

From "Usage & Grammar Test" UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media at http://hussman.unc.edu/ugtest

"The Usage and Grammar Test is a graduation requirement for all UNC Hussman majors and second majors. Students are required to score 70 percent or better on the test before graduation.

"The test evaluates word usage, grammar and punctuation competencies based on AP style. It is a timed 60-minute test given electronically through Sakai that consists of 100 multiple-choice questions.

"The test is offered multiple times throughout each fall and spring semester and once each summer session. There is no limit to how many times the test is taken. Seats are limited."

From "J-school spelling and grammar test revised to better measure language skills" (2012) at http://hussman.unc.edu/spellinggrammar

"The UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media has revised its spelling and grammar exam, which will feature a word usage section in place of the spelling section beginning fall 2012.

"Spelling, of course, still matters to the J-school," said Andy Bechtel, an associate professor who teaches courses in copyediting. "Students who misspell words on assignments will still be penalized." For example, a misspelled name in a newswriting assignment results in a 50-point penalty. In editing courses, headlines and captions with misspelled words receive no credit.

"Bechtel originally suggested the change because be believes memorizing a spelling list isn’t the best measure of competence in communication. While incorporating word usage — a measure of language expertise that tests elements of spelling and homophone choice, among others — the test retains its emphasis on grammar."

2. From "Nicholson School of Communication and Media, University of Central Florida" at https://communication.ucf.edu/degree/journalism-b-a/

"Minimum Admission Requirements

"Grammar proficiency: Grammar proficiency can be met by earning an "A-" or higher in both English Composition I and English Composition II, or by earning credit through AP, IB or CLEP, or by successfully passing the grammar proficiency exam through the UCF Testing Center."

3. A 2006 PDF from the ASJMC (The Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication) has two interesting articles in it:

(a) "When Journalism Majors Don't Know Grammar (causes considerations, and approaches)" by Gerald Grow, Florida A&M University

(b) "Journalism Schools and The Teaching of Grammar" by Don Ranly, University of Missouri.

Grow says that there are problems with requiring journalism students to pass either an entrance test or an exit test in grammar. On the other hand, Ranly says that grammar tests for journalism students are a folly. He also says,"The third problem is that many [journalism teachers] if not most do not know grammar."

4. "[Florida International University] School of Communication + Journalism eliminates grammar test" at https://panthernow.com/2017/08/27/school-of-communication-journalism-eliminates-grammar-test/

"Students studying communications and journalism will no longer be required to pass a grammar test to continue their major.

"The Language Skills test was comprised of a multiple-choice grammar section and a writing sample. Students needed a 70 or better to pass, according to the school’s website.

"Senior journalism major Mark Fitzgerald said the $75 exam was 'a killer,' and had to retake the exam three times before he passed.

"Fred Blevens, a professor in the Department of Journalism was part of the faculty committee that drafted the new curriculum. Blevens believes the grammar test was not the best way to judge a student’s writing ability.

"'It’s an old method. None of the top schools in the U.S. have a test,' Blevens said. 'Many of them quit testing and found other ways to determine students' success years and years ago and there’s a reason for that.'

"Past issues with the grammar test was we’d have students graduating from a degree program and then they could still not write, and we had students who were being bounced out with a 3.5 GPA or higher because they couldn’t pass the test… There is no opinion that shows that [the test] was effective at all," Blevens said. "So we knew that coming to pass the two writing intensive courses to get into the major was a much more effective way."

5. From "Teaching Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation in Community College Journalism  Courses: A Mixed Methods Action Research Study" by Jeanette Calo (dissertation, Arizona State University, 2022):

"A former student of mine recently stopped by to chat about how she was doing at  her new school. After completing the journalism program at Grossmont College, the twoyear community college at which I teach, she transferred as a junior into her first-choice school of San Diego State University (SDSU), the nearby four-year university. I was  surprised when she told me the biggest challenge she faced in her new program was the required Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation (GSP) Test, especially because she was an  exceptional student in my classes and had even functioned as editor-in-chief for a semester at the student news magazine and website I advise. However, in her own words, she 'barely passed' and was one of the few who did; in fact, she told me the exam is dreaded by all students who want to get into the School of Journalism and Media Studies (JMS) at SDSU. I found myself wondering how such an exceptional student, with a seemingly firm grasp on writing mechanics, struggled so much on this required entrance exam."

6. The study "Assessing the Need for Change in J-School Grammar Curricula" by Marc C. Seamon (January 2001 Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 55(4) "surveys 100 journalism schools investigating: (1) whether journalism schools treat spelling, punctuation, grammar, and AP style as important factors in improving the state of journalism; (2) how journalism schools are teaching and assessing spelling, punctuation, grammar, and AP style; and (3) whether journalism schools are using entrance or exit tests."
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Site Announcements / Playlist Update (April 13 - 19, 2024) of Jose Carillo Forum's Facebook Gateway
« Last post by Joe Carillo on April 17, 2024, 04:01:23 PM »
PLAYLIST UPDATE FOR APRIL 13 - 19, 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 Carillo: “The world in 854 words: My nth retrospective since the early 2000s”





2. Getting to Know English Better: “A quick review of the English comparatives”


                                         
                                     
3. Use and Misuse “It’s foolhardy to stop learning English grammar just like that!”




4. Getting to Know English Retrospective: “Hyphenating compound modifiers for clarity”




5. You Asked Me This Question: “Precisely when do we use the past progressive tense?”




6. My Media English Watch Retrospective: “How 'right of reply' differs from “right to reply'”




7. Students’ Sounding Board: “When is sentence inversion a matter of grammar or style?”




8. Your Thoughts Exactly: “Bridges,” a retrospective essay by Antonio Calipjo Go, Forum Member and Contributor




9. Language Humor At Its Finest: “30 funny English signs from all over the world"




10. Advice and Dissent: “Our personal destiny may already be hard-wired into our brain”




11. Readings in Language: “Travails with learning just a smattering of Latin”




12. Time Out From English Grammar: “Challenging the dogma that our IQ sets a limit on what we can achieve”




13. The Forum Lounge: “Phenomenal rock star Freddie Mercury sings 'Barcelona' for the ages”




14. Time Out From English Grammar: “Did Mona Lisa have high cholesterol, and is Newton’s apple story authentic?”



 

15. Use and Misuse Retrospective: “It’s obtuse, even distasteful, to say that seeing a doctor is ‘pleasurable!’”






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Essays by Joe Carillo / The world in 854 words: My nth retrospective
« Last post by Joe Carillo on April 17, 2024, 12:22:28 PM »
(This must be the nth time that I am doing a retrospective of this essay that I wrote in the early 2000s, hoping against hope that for its long-term survival, humanity will finally learn to be peaceably rational and rationally peaceable to keep the world free from strife and disorder. Otherwise, isn’t it obvious that all efforts towards mutual progress and amity among peoples are in vain and meaningless?)

If I were asked to describe the world as I see it today, I would readily give this answer: it has hardly changed since 2,200 years ago when Archimedes, the Greek mathematician and physicist, was said to have bragged that he could move the world if only he had the lever to lift it. For all his ingenuity and imagination, however, Archimedes was dead wrong on this count. He knew the power of the lever like the back of his hand, assiduously applying this knowledge to design military catapults and grappling irons; he figured out with stunning accuracy the mathematical properties of circles and spheres, including the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, or what we now know as pi (3.14159265...); he began the science of hydrostatics, or the forces that govern stationary fluids, after discovering the now familiar Archimedes Principle; and he even invented the Archimedes screw, an ingenious water-raising machine still used today to irrigate fields in Egypt.

But on hindsight, we know now that Archimedes obviously exceeded his mind’s grasp when he thought of lifting the world with a plank. It wouldn’t have been possible to do so even if a suitable fulcrum could be found. The world was actually (and still is) an ovaloid sphere 12,760 km in diameter, one that rotates on its axis in 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.09 seconds and that revolves around a much bigger sphere—the sun—in 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, and 9.6 seconds. The object Archimedes had bragged of lifting actually has a mass in tons of about 5.98 x 10 raised to the 21st power, and a volume in cubic meters of about 1.08 x 10 raised to the 21st power—figures too mind-boggling to even think about, much less to trifle with.



These elemental things obviously went beyond the ken of Archimedes’ overarching genius. It was only 1,750 years later, in fact, that the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was to make the startling, heretical thesis that Earth was not the center of the universe but simply one of the planets that orbited the bigger, stationary sun. But on this even Copernicus, who began the scientific reawakening that came to be known as the Copernican Revolution, was only partly right. The sun, it turned out centuries later, was not stationary in the heavens at all. It was rotating on it own axis in a perpetually moving spiral arm of the galaxy that we now call the Milky Way.

All of these facts about our world are now well-established certainties. Despite this accumulated knowledge, however, mankind still acts more primitively and more irrationally than its ancestors before the time of Archimedes. Humanity is still as mired as ever in superstition and religious fundamentalism. Organized religion, superstition, and nationhood have no doubt been great civilizing forces, instilling fear, awe, faith, and patriotism in man, and marshaling both the motive and creative energies for such architectural marvels as the Stonehenge in England, the Great Pyramids of Egypt, the stately cathedrals in Europe, the great mosques in the Middle East and in Asia, the Borobodur temples in Cambodia, and the huge statues of Buddha in Afghanistan. Yet these very same forces— organized religion, superstition, and nationhood—have been methodically destroying not only human lives by the thousands but even the physical, social, and cultural legacies humanity had accumulated in the interim.


Intolerance on the religious, political, or ideological plane has always plagued mankind through the centuries, of course, both long before and long after the time of Archimedes. It brought about so many of the horrible depredations on either side of the major religious or geopolitical divides, from the time of the Crusades—those armed Christian expeditions to the Holy Lands and Constantinople in the 11th century—to the destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York in 2001. But more deeply disturbing is the fact that this intolerance and bloodshed have persisted even with the civilizing influence of the Age of Reason and Scientific Enlightenment. Today, people in many parts of the world are still murderously lunging at each other’s throats, intolerant of one another’s religious beliefs, disdainful of one another’s politics and ideology, and covetous of one another’s personal or national possessions. Humanity obviously has not learned its lessons well.

Thus, the great flowering of scientific knowledge and rational thinking that began with Archimedes and pursued with vigor by such great scientific minds as Copernicus, Galileo Galilee, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein—not to mention Charles Darwin—seems not to have really amounted to much. Our mindsets and dispositions as a species have remained largely primitive—there are disturbing signs, in fact, that we have deteriorated as social and reasoning animals, perhaps irreversibly. It is therefore not at all surprising that today, on a shocking improvement on Archimedes’ claim that he could lift the world with a lever, people by the thousands could think and claim that they could move the world simply on pure belief—no lever, no fulcrum, no hands or physical effort even—just belief and absolutely nothing else.

Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in The Manila Times:
The world in 854 words

(Next: When saying it once isn’t enough)        April 18, 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.
7
Site Announcements / Playlist Update (April 6 - 12, 2024) Jose Carillo Forum's Facebook Gateway
« Last post by Joe Carillo on April 10, 2024, 01:14:35 PM »
PLAYLIST UPDATE FOR APRIL 6 - 12, 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 Jose A. Carillo: “When immodest medical jargon is used as a slogan”




2. Getting to Know English Better: “Mastery of the connectives can make us write and speak much better”


                                         
                                     
3. Use and Misuse: “Fused sentences are very serious, very annoying grammar violations”




4. You Asked Me This Question: “Inverted sentences have a subject-verb agreement peculiarity”




5. You Asked Me This Question: “A grammar conversation on parenthetical usage” with the late writer Ed Maranan, Palanca Awards Hall of Famer in Literature




6. My Media English Watch Retrospective: “Shock-and-awe English in Bohol earthquake reportage (2013)”




7. Getting To Know English Better: “Don’t get caught using wrong double negatives!”




8. Essays by Jose A.Carillo: “My hunch was right about the usage of 'between' and 'among'”




9. Language Humor At Its Finest: “Contributed jokes from all over to brighten up your day”




10. Your Thoughts Exactly: “Lockdown, Before and After,” a Retrospective by Tonybau, Forum Member and Contributor




11. Advice and Dissent: “As one goes way past the prime of one’s life,” a personal summing up by English professor and book writer Joseph Epstein




12. The Forum Lounge: “Young upcoming novelist on 'The Unbearable Costs of Becoming a Writer'”




13. Time Out From English Grammar: “Peeling off the multilayered legends from ancient Greece”


 

14. Time Out From English Grammar: “The thief who stole 106 priceless timepieces in audacious museum heist”




15. Readings in Language: “In self-defense, we must see through deliberately devious English jargon”




16. The Forum Lounge: “Book publishing's broken blurb system 'a plague on the industry'”





8
Essays by Joe Carillo / When immodest medical jargon is used as a slogan
« Last post by Joe Carillo on April 10, 2024, 12:28:16 PM »
Many years back, while I was waiting for the traffic light to turn green on Ortigas Avenue corner EDSA in Metro Manila, my wife Leonor nudged me and pointed to an undulating phrase and image painted prominently on the side of a brand-new hospital ambulance that had stopped beside our car. The phrase was this hospital motto: “Patient on Center Stage, Service of Greater Worth.”

Leonor said with a scowl: “Oh that motto not only confuses me but gives me the creeps! If I were a patient in a hospital I wouldn’t want to be placed on center stage. I’d rather that they put me in a nice private room where only the doctors and nurses can efficiently but discreetly attend to me until I got well.”


                                        IMAGE CREDIT: FROM MODERNHEALTH.COM ARTICLE – CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
Medical professionals at work in a modern hospital operating theater

“Dear, I think you misunderstood the phrase,” I said. “It’s using the words ‘Patient on Center Stage’ figuratively. It’s actually saying that when you are admitted into that hospital, you’ll become the focal point of its attention. They’ll treat you like a prima donna—the star of the show.”

“But that’s precisely what’s wrong with that phrase, Honey,” she said. “It considers being hospitalized more like showbiz than health care, and I must tell you that such a view evokes many unpleasant images in my mind.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, that phrase gives me the feeling that in that hospital, they’d put patients on conspicuous display as a matter of procedure. Remember that creepy old operating theater in that London hospital—if I remember right it was in that Frankenstein movie that had Robert De Niro in the monster’s role—where doctors did major surgery on patients while dozens of medical students and other observers watched from a winding observation gallery high above the operating table? That’s definitely not my idea of excellent hospital service!”

“Now I see your point,” I said. “It’s a semantic problem. The motto’s ‘center stage’ metaphor is giving you negative imagery. That’s what happens when highly figurative language is used in supposedly commonsense statements, and the problem gets worse when such language is mixed with fuzzy jargon or business-speak. But you know, some pretesting through focus-group interviews could have caught that motto’s problem with its language.”

“That’s right—and pretesting could have also caught the problem with the second phrase. You see, it’s so difficult to understand what ‘Service of Greater Worth’ means. Are they saying that the services of that hospital actually should be priced higher than those of other hospitals? But then that’s not something worth crowing about from a marketing standpoint, is it? Also, I always thought that in English, when using comparatives like ‘greater,’ you need to identify the thing you are comparing something with. That second phrase doesn’t do that.”

“You’re right, and that makes its use of the comparative grammatically wrong. But I can see now that the phrase has an even bigger problem: it uses the word ‘worth’ very loosely. Of course, what the motto is trying to convey is that this hospital offers ‘better service’ than other hospitals, but this message gets garbled because the phrase ‘greater worth’ is wrongly used to mean ‘of greater value,’ when in fact those two mean entirely different things.”

“So how would that motto go if you were to rephrase it?”

“Frankly, dear, I don’t know how! Coming up with a good motto or slogan isn’t easy. It’s a creative act, actually an art form that needs not only good sense but also a great eye and ear for wordplay. You just know that a slogan is great or good or bad when you read or hear it for the first time. Listen to these slogans: ‘We’ve got it all for you!’ (of that big department store chain), ‘Where beautiful skin happens’ (of that facial care center), ‘Your success is our business’ (of that local bank), and ‘Delighting you always’ (of that foreign maker of electronic cameras and computer printers). Each of them uses felicitous wordplay to express a clear and persuasive idea. And they all ring true and convincing, giving us no reason at all to quibble over their words or to debate in our minds whether what they are saying is true or not.”

“I agree with you that those slogans are well-crafted and pleasing to the ears. Now why don’t you make an improved version of that hospital’s motto along the same lines?”

“I can’t, my dear, and that’s precisely my point. Making good mottoes or slogans isn’t something that just anybody can do on short notice, and it certainly shouldn’t be assigned to professionals whose minds are so steeped in business or medical jargon that they no longer find it comfortable to think in plain and simple English. Mottoes and slogans meant for the world at large are best written by professional wordsmiths—people who can create extraordinarily expressive, convincing, and memorable messages in just a few words.”

“Well,” Leonor sighed, “I hope that hospital gets one such slogan professional very soon to fix its airy motto.” (2005)

Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in The Manila Times:
When immodest medical jargon is used as a slogan

(Next: The world in 854 words)        April 11, 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.
9
Site Announcements / Playlist Update for March 30 - April 5, 2024 of the Forum's Facebook Gateway
« Last post by Joe Carillo on April 03, 2024, 11:38:12 AM »
PLAYLIST UPDATE FOR MARCH 30 - APRIL 5, 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: “The importance of grammar-perfect English”




2. You Asked Me This Question: “How long should a sentence be to effectively deliver an idea?”



                                         
                                     
3. Use and Misuse: “The grammar of English conditional sentences”




4. Students’ Sounding Board: “How to use ‘to have been’ and ‘having been’”




5. Pervasive Prickly Problem With An Idiomatic Phrase: “With regard to ‘with regards to’ or ‘as regards to’”




6. Essay by Jose A. Carillo Retrospective: “Open secret to writing prose that leaps out from the page”




7. Time Out From English Grammar:  “Measuring up to the human body’s perfection in architectural terms”




8. You Asked Me This Question: “What does the term ‘Philippine area of responsibility’ mean?”





9. Language Humor at its Finest: “When children define science in their own terms”


There is a tremendous weight pushing down on the center of the Earth 
because of so much population stomping around up here these days.

10. Essay by Jose A. Carillo: "When even the passive voice isn't enough”




11. “Time Out From English Grammar: “The psychometric test that promised to be an ‘X-ray to the soul’”




12. Advice and Dissent: “Interpretive contests are essential in efforts to advance historical understanding"


BUST OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT, 312 CE


13. Readings in Language Retrospective: “When you really don't have anything to say but simply need to say it well”




14. A Forum Lounge Retrospective: “23 stunning, magically beautiful sights from all over the world”




15. A Forum Lounge Retrospective: “A beauty and a love verboten” by Angel B. Casillan, Forum Contributor





10
Essays by Joe Carillo / The importance of grammar-perfect English
« Last post by Joe Carillo on April 02, 2024, 06:13:36 PM »
Several years ago, when I went to a dental clinic in one of the big malls in Metro Manila to have a tooth filling restored, the front-desk clerk asked me to fill out a patient’s ledger card. The card was one those 5”x 8” affairs that ask for your name, address, telephone number, age, marital status, occupation, and allergies, but it had this curious final category in the all-noun information-gathering array: “Complain.” 

“Something’s wrong with this ledger card,” I told the clerk. “It spells ‘complain’ without the ‘t’ so it makes the word a command, which is grammatically and semantically wrong. The correct word to use is ‘complaint,’ a noun that has the added virtue of being in parallel with the all-noun elements in the set.”

                                        IMAGE CREDIT: COURTESY OF KASHMIRNEWSOBSERVER.COM

“Never mind that, sir,” the clerk said. “Those ledger cards are only supplied to us by a drug company for free and they all use the same word. Anyway, sir, ‘complain’ and ‘complaint’ are the same thing anyway, so why all the fuss?” 

“But I do mind, miss, because those two words don’t mean the same thing, “ I said. “You better tell the dentist to tell that drug company to tell its supplier to tell its printer to correct that word to ‘complaint’ by adding ‘t.’ And right now, before I even fill out this form, I am crossing out that wrong word and replacing it with the right one, OK?”  “If you say so, sir,” the clerk replied huffily.

“I just don’t understand why you waste your time over such petty matters.” 

Since it so happened that the dentist was ready to see me, I didn’t get the chance to explain to the clerk why all users of English should mind such errors and correct them. As my favorite saying about language goes, “A society is generally as lax as its language.” (This is the banner slogan of The Vocabula Review, a well-regarded website on English usage active at that time.)

In retrospect, though, I can see more clearly now why some people simply couldn’t fathom why the noun form of the verb “complain” should end with a “t.” The word “complaint” just happens to be one of the very few English nouns—there are actually only four of them—that had been formed by adding the suffix “t” to a verb ending in “-ain.” All of French derivation, those nouns are “complaint,” “constraint,” “distraint,” and “restraint.”

Most English verbs that became nouns took the present participle or “-ing” form, which made them gerunds, such as “undertaking” (from the verb “undertake”), “launching” (from “launch”), and “rating” (from “rate”). Many other verbs took the suffix “-ion” or “-age” to become nouns, such as “abstraction” (from “abstract”), “rotation” (from “rotate”), “marriage” (from “marry”), and “carriage” (from “carry”).

Of course, there are also several nouns formed by adding the suffix “-al” to the verb, such as “acquittal” (from “acquit”), “rebuttal” (from “rebut”), and “referral” (from “refer”), but in such cases, note that when the verb ends in a consonant, that consonant is repeated before the suffix is added. And finally, there are some abstract nouns that were formed by adding the suffix “-ence” to the verb, such as “insistence” (from “insist”), “existence” (from “exist”), and “difference” (from “differ”).

But even granting that people knew these characteristics and peculiarities of English nouns, many of them would likely still make the mistake of including the verb “complain” in an all-noun array if they were clueless about parallelism. Thus, in situations like this, it’s very important to remember this basic parallelism rule: all elements in a list—whether nouns, verbs, infinitives, gerunds, and participles—should take the same grammatical form.

Thus, in that dental patient’s ledger card where all the elements are nouns (“name,” “address,” “telephone number,” “age,” “marital status,” and so forth), you need to add a “t” to the verb “complain” to make it a noun so it will be parallel with all the other nouns in the list.

Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in The Manila Times:
The importance of grammar-perfect English

(Next: When business-speak goes over our heads)     April 11, 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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