Author Topic: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore  (Read 13903 times)

Joe Carillo

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Until this weekend, I came across no spectacular misuses of English in the four major Metro Manila broadsheets. All I found are the following lapses in basic English grammar in their respective issues today (March 5)—errors so elementary that professional reporters and editors worth their salt really shouldn’t be making them anymore:

(1) Philippine Star: Wrong use of the present perfect

Quote
Lawmakers seek P1.7 B more for SUCs

MANILA, Philippines - Two Mindanao congressmen have proposed the other day the appropriation of an additional P1.7 billion for the 111 state universities and colleges (SUCs) throughout the country.

In House Bill 4181, Representatives Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro City and his brother Maximo, who represents the party-list group Abante Mindanao, said SUCs “depend on the government for support for them to provide quality education to our poor Filipino youth.”

The lead sentence of the news story above misuses the present perfect tense. This is because the phrase “the other day” provides a precise time of occurrence for the verb “have proposed.” By definition, of course, the present perfect doesn’t need a precise time of occurrence; the action of the verb is completed with respect to the present, but precisely when isn’t specified, as in this sentence: “The foreign student has taken the TOEFL.” In the sentence in question, therefore, the phrase “the other day” nullifies the present-perfect and makes the sentence grammatically wrong.

That time of occurrence should then be dropped to make the perfect-tense construction correct, as follows:

“Two Mindanao congressmen have proposed the appropriation of an additional P1.7 billion for the 111 state universities and colleges (SUCs) throughout the country.”

Since the precise time of occurrence is specified in the original lead sentence, however, the simple past is the correct tense to use here:

“Two Mindanao congressmen the other day proposed the appropriation of an additional P1.7 billion for the 111 state universities and colleges (SUCs) throughout the country.”
 
(2) The Manila Times: Use of the wrong conditional form

Quote
Another payment awaits Marcos victims

Human rights victims could be millionaires should the alleged $65-million ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family is transferred to the coffer of the government, lawyer Rod Domingo said on Friday.

Domingo, a counsel based in the United States was the one who convinced human rights victims during the Marcos era to join him in filing claims in the 90s.

The lead sentence of the news story uses the wrong form for the conditional. The correct form is not “should + object of the verb + is + operative verb” but “should + object of the verb + be + operative verb” instead. That sentence should therefore read as follows:

“Human rights victims could be millionaires should the alleged $65-million ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family be transferred to the coffers of the government, lawyer Rod Domingo said on Friday.”

Of course, using the linking verb “is” would be correct if the sentence is converted to the “if”-conditional form instead, as follows:

“Human rights victims could be millionaires if the alleged $65-million ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family is transferred to the coffers of the government, lawyer Rod Domingo said on Friday.”

(3) Manila Bulletin: Use of wrong verb and verb tense

Quote
13 lady bus drivers ready to hit Metro roads

MANILA, Philippines — Thirteen Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA)-certified lady drivers are now preparing to hit the busy highways of the metropolis as full-fledged bus drivers after they have been employed by three bus companies
[/u].

Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Francis Tolentino said 13 of the 21 in the first batch of applicants for lady bus drivers have been hired by local bus companies – HM Bus Company, Cher Bus, and RRCCG.

In the lead sentence above, the subordinate clause “after they have been employed by three bus companies” uses a wrong verb and yields the wrong sense. The verb “employed” and its use in the present-perfect passive-form “have been employed” are both grammatically erroneous because they convey the wrong sense that the employment of the lady drivers has ended with respect to the present. That correct sense would emerge if the verb “hired” in the present perfect passive form is used instead. This is because the hirings were very recent one-time acts of the employers with no specific time of occurrence;; employment, on the other hand, is a continuing act that subsists until employment ends or is terminated, which isn’t the sense intended here.

Another serious problem with the lead sentence is its flawed semantics. It wrongly conveys the sense that each of the 13 TESDA-certified lady drivers has been hired and is currently employed by the three bus companies. The correct sense is, of course, that the three bus companies made a total of 13 hires from among the TESDA-certified lady drivers, with each of these drivers working for only one bus company.

To rectify all of the grammatical and semantic problems pointed out above, that problematic lead sentence needs a major overhaul like the one I propose below:

“A total of 13 Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA)-certified lady drivers have been hired by three bus companies and are now preparing to hit the busy highways of the metropolis as full-fledged bus drivers.”

(4) The Manila Times and Manila Bulletin: Grammatically flawed rewrites of apparently the same press release

The Manila Times version:

Quote
Nurses, legislators want end to volunteer training program

THREE of the largest organizations of nurses in the Philippines joined legislators in eyeing to stop the volunteer nursing training program allegedly exploited by numerous private and government medical institutions.

During a roundtable conference at the House of Representatives on Wednesday, the Nars ng Bayan, Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) and Ang Nars issued an appeal to the leadership of the Lower Congress to put as priority the House Bill 767, which seeks to stop both private and government hospitals and other medical institutions from recruiting nurses to volunteer in medical and nursing training programs without payment of salaries and allowances under the prevailing rates of their profession.

In the lead sentence of the news story above, the phrase “joined legislators in eyeing to stop the volunteer nursing training program” is a grammatically faulty mélange. The progressive-tense verb “eyeing” is, of course, correctly used to mean “contemplating” or “considering,” but it is grammatically awkward if not outright faulty to use the  infinitive phrase “to stop the volunteer nursing training program” as its direct object. A much better, smoother way is to convert that infinitive phrase into the noun phrase “the stoppage of the nursing training program,” a form more suitable for serving as a direct object. 

Also, the absence of the subordinating conjunction “that” before the subordinate clause “allegedly exploited by numerous private and government medical institutions” makes its linkage with the main clause unclear and rickety, thus obscuring the intended meaning of the sentence. For sentence clarity, it would be much better to convert that restrictive subordinate clause into a nonrestrictive one introduced by the relative pronoun “which.” This will also give much-needed pause and breathing space for the reader when reading that rather long sentence.

Then, in the second sentence of the lead passage, the phrase “to put as priority the House Bill 767” is both grammatically wrong and awkwardly worded. The correct, straightforward way to say it is “to give priority to House Bill 767.”

Here then is that problematic two-paragraph passage as corrected:

“Three of the largest organizations of nurses in the Philippines joined legislators in eyeing the stoppage of the volunteer nursing training program, which is allegedly being exploited by numerous private and government medical institutions.

“During a roundtable conference at the House of Representatives on Wednesday, the Nars ng Bayan, Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) and Ang Nars issued an appeal to the leadership of the Lower Congress to give priority to House Bill 767, which seeks to stop both private and government hospitals and other medical institutions from recruiting nurses to volunteer in medical and nursing training programs without payment of salaries and allowances under the prevailing rates of their profession.”

The Manila Bulletin version:

Quote
End to volunteer nursing training program pressed

MANILA, Philippines — Three of the largest organizations of nurses in the country joined congressmen in assailing the continued government inaction to demands for an end to the volunteer nursing training program allegedly exploited by nearly all private and government medical institutions.

In a roundtable conference, the Nars ng Bayan, Philippine Nurses Association and Ang Nars also issued a strong appeal to the House of Representatives leadership to place in the list of legislative priorities House Bill 767 seeking to bar private and government hospitals and other medical institutions from recruiting nurses to volunteer in medical and nursing training programs without payment of salaries and allowances under the prevailing rates of their profession.

In the lead sentence of the news story above, the phrase “the continued government inaction to demands for an end to the volunteer nursing training program” is grammatically faulty and awkwardly worded. The correct preposition to link the noun “inaction” to “demands” is “on,” not “to,” and the phrase “for an end to the volunteer nursing training program” is better and more concisely worded as “to end the volunteer nursing training program.”

Also, the subordinate clause of that lead paragraph suffers from the same grammatical problem and awkward wording as those of the version of The Manila Times. I would therefore use the same grammatical fix I suggested for the corrected Times version.

So here’s that problematic first paragraph of the Manila Bulletin version as corrected:

“Three of the largest organizations of nurses in the country joined congressmen in assailing the continued government inaction on demands to end the volunteer nursing training program, which is allegedly being exploited by nearly all private and government medical institutions.”
« Last Edit: March 05, 2011, 02:29:12 PM by Joe Carillo »

raa

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Re: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore
« Reply #1 on: March 06, 2011, 02:32:31 PM »
Very informative forum. Thanks. :)

Nathan_Yell

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Re: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2011, 11:02:22 AM »
Hi Sir,

I would just like to ask what you mean by the comment "grammatically awkward"? From what I understand, it means something that is not outrightly wrong grammatically speaking. In your comment on the rewritten Manila Times article, how can the use of the infinitive phrase as direct object be possibly outright faulty if it is only grammatically awkward? Perhaps I'm just confused with the expression "if not..." Does that mean that if you use strict standards, the sentence would be faulty instead of just awkward? Also, how can the infinitive phrase be faulty when used as direct object in this sentence? Don't infinitives act as nouns as well? I'd also like to know how I can avoid grammatical awkwardness because I used to get that comment in my papers a lot during college. :)



PS.
Thanks, sir, for today's media watch! We're very lucky to have people who keep the standards high. 

Joe Carillo

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Re: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore
« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2011, 12:20:24 AM »
You asked a very perceptive and tough question so let’s look even more closely at that lead sentence with a phrase that I described as “a grammatically faulty mélange”:

“Three of the largest organizations of nurses in the Philippines joined legislators in eyeing to stop the volunteer nursing training program allegedly exploited by numerous private and government medical institutions.”

I said that the phrase that I have italicized above, “joined legislators in eyeing to stop the volunteer nursing program” is grammatically awkward if not outright faulty. This is because in that construction, the infinitive phrase “to stop the volunteer nursing program” as the direct object of the active verb “eyeing” is a grammatical combination that doesn’t seem to work properly and doesn’t sound right.

In such grammatical combinations, the active verb usually dictates whether an infinitive or a gerund can be used as a direct object. (Remember now that the infinitive and the gerund are both verbals, or verb forms that don’t function as verbs but as nouns.) In English, in fact, some verbs can only take the infinitive as a verbal direct object, other verbs can only take the gerund as a verbal direct object, and the rest can take either the infinitive or a gerund as a verbal direct object.

Here are some common verbs that can only take the infinitive as a verbal direct object: “agree,” “appear,” “arrange,” “ask,” “beg,” “care,” “claim,” “decide,” “demand,” “deserve,” “desire,” “expect,” “fail,” “forget,” “hire,” “hope,” “intend,” “learn,” “manage,” mean” “need,” “offer,” “order,” “prepare,” “pretend,” “promise,” “refuse,” “regret,” “ seem,” “ten,” “try,” “wait,” “want,” and “wish.”

See how the verb-infinitive combination works: “We agreed to reimburse him for expenses.” (In contrast, the verb-gerund combination doesn’t: “We agreed reimbursing him for expenses.) “She cared to clean the premises regularly while we were away.” (The verb-gerund combination doesn’t: “She cared cleaning the premises regularly while we were away.”)

And now here are some verbs that can only take the gerund as a verbal direct object: “admit,” “advise,” “appreciate,” “anticipate,” “avoid,” “consider,” “delay,” “deny,” “discuss,” “enjoy,” “excuse,” “finish,” “keep,” “mind,” “miss,” “postpone,” “practice,” “quit,” “recall,” “recommend,” “regret,” “resent,” “resist,” “resume,” “risk,” “suggest,” “tolerate,” “try,” “understand,” and “imagine.”

See how the verb-gerund combination works: “She admitted taking the funds surreptitiously from the depositor’s account.” (The verb-infinitive combination doesn’t work: “She admitted to take the funds surreptitiously from the depositor’s account.”) “They considered commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment.” (The verb-infinitive combination doesn’t work: “They considered to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment.”)

Now, going back to the phrase “joined legislators in eyeing to stop the volunteer nursing program,” you’ll notice that it’s in the same league as the last verb-infinitive combination above that doesn’t work properly: “They considered to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment.” In fact, the grammatical awkwardness of the verb-infinitive combination “eyeing to stop” will become obvious when we convert the progressive-form verb “eyeing” to its past tense, as in “Together with the legislators, we eyed to stop the volunteer nursing program.” This time the verb-infinitive combination isn’t only grammatically awkward but obviously grammatically faulty as well—and people who know their English definitely won’t be caught writing or talking like that.

The obvious alternative is to use the verb-gerund combination, as follows: “Three of the largest organizations of nurses in the Philippines joined legislators in eyeing stopping the volunteer nursing training program, which is allegedly being exploited by numerous private and government medical institutions.” Nothing’s grammatically wrong with the “eyeing stopping” combination, of course, but it sounds so cacophonous that people with an ear for good English simply wouldn’t use it.

Indeed, the transitive verb “eye,” which means “to contemplate or consider,” seems to work well only when the direct object is not a verbal but a noun (or pronoun), as in “The car buyer, eyeing the choices, decided not to make a purchase” and in “They eyed us with suspicion.” This is actually why I suggested changing the infinitive “to stop” in that sentence to the noun “stoppage”: “Three of the largest organizations of nurses in the Philippines joined legislators in eyeing the stoppage of the volunteer nursing training program, which is allegedly being exploited by numerous private and government medical institutions. 

In my book Give Your English the Winning Edge, I have devoted four chapters to explaining this grammatical phenomenon—I’d call it a quirk of English, in fact— involving verbs that have an infinitive phrase or gerund phrase as direct object. It’s a complication that admittedly will stump a lot of English learners, for it needs a lot of advanced knowledge in English grammar and semantics to be clearly understood, but there it is.

Nathan_Yell

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Re: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore
« Reply #4 on: March 21, 2011, 12:06:35 PM »
Verbs with specific objects? That is a revelation. A thousand more questions are running through my head, but I think I should read that book you recommended first. Four chapters might be enlightening enough. Thanks, sir!

scoylumban

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Re: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore
« Reply #5 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".

scoylumban

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Re: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore
« Reply #6 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".

scoylumban

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Re: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore
« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2011, 11:58:41 AM »
I should have written "in a report".

Joe Carillo

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Re: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore
« Reply #8 on: March 31, 2011, 08:11:04 AM »
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".

The narrative history in the Catholic Encyclopedia about the evolution of Holy Saturday, particularly the reference to baptism of catachumens "in the darkness of night" during the time of St. John Chrysostom in Constantinopole, might help explain why this day is called "Black saturday"--perhaps not only in the Philippines but elsewhere. I seem to recall this sort of ritual in darkness being done in my Philippine hometown many years ago, along with the church practice of totally covering the supine and lifeless full-body statue of Jesus Christ with a black shroud (which in my adolescent mind I had always presumed was the basis for calling Holy Saturday "Black Saturday").   

Read the New Advent: Catholic Encyclopedia: Holy Saturday
« Last Edit: March 31, 2011, 11:46:35 AM by Joe Carillo »

scoylumban

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Re: Grammar errors so basic that media shouldn’t be making them anymore
« Reply #9 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.