Avoiding misuse of the conjunction “as well as” in newspaper reporting

[Joe Carillo]

For the benefit of those who might be routinely misusing the conjunction “as well as” without even knowing it, I would like to show and explain why its use in the lead sentence below from a recent news story is odd and grammatically flawed.

Manila Bulletin:  Misuse of the conjunction “as well as”

Angat Dam rehab proceeds soon

MALOLOS CITY, Bulacan, Philippines — The rehabilitation of Angat Dam is about to start after the memorandum of agreement (MoA) as well as the contract between the two consultant companies regarding Angat Dam and Dyke Safety Program have been signed, recently.

Bulacan Governor Wilhelmino M. Sy Alvarado said that the MoA states the conduct of a feasibility study that will test the strength of Angat Dam at present.

There’s a serious subject-verb disagreement error in the lead sentence above because of its improper use of the conjunction “as well as.”

Let me explain that seemingly counterintuitive assessment.

The conjunction “as well as,” which means “and in addition,” has a peculiar usage totally different from that of the additive conjunction “and.” Oddly, when a sentence uses “as well as” to connect its subject to another noun or pronoun, the grammar rule is that the verb should agree in number—whether singular or plural—only with the subject that precedes “as well as” and should ignore the noun or pronoun that follows “as well as” in making that determination1. This rule should become clearer through the following example:

“The labor arbiter as well as the union lawyer understands the point.”

Take note that the verb “understands” is singular in form, agreeing in number with the singular noun “labor arbiter.” From a subject-verb agreement standpoint, therefore, only the noun that comes before “as well as” (“labor arbiter” in this case) was used as basis for determining whether the verb is singular or plural; the noun that comes after “as well as” (“union lawyer” in this case) was ignored in that determination.

As explained in Fowler’s Modern English Usage, this is the case when using “as well as” because the addition in such sentences (here, that addition is “as well as the union lawyer”) is regarded as a parenthesis² and not as part of the main sentence (as it would be if “as well as” were replaced by “and”). Indeed, formally, the sentence I gave as example above may also be constructed as follows to reflect the fact that “as well as the union lawyer” is a parenthetical or optional element of that sentence:

“The labor arbiter, as well as the union lawyer, understands this point.”

At any rate, following the rule for the usage of “as well as,” that problematic lead sentence should be corrected as follows:

“The rehabilitation of Angat Dam is about to start after the memorandum of agreement (MoA) as well as the contract between the two consultant companies regarding Angat Dam and Dyke Safety Program has been signed, recently.”

Here, for total grammar correctness, I have replaced the verb phrase “have been signed” with “has been signed” to reflect the fact that the noun phrase before “as well as” (“the memorandum of agreement (MoA)”) is singular.

As we can see, even the corrected sentence above remains confusing; indeed, such a construction is best avoided to achieve clarity. See how things get much simpler and clearer when the basic additive conjunction “and” is used instead (and when the wrong tense of the present perfect “has been signed recently” is corrected to the simple past tense “were signed recently”):

“The rehabilitation of Angat Dam is about to start after the memorandum of agreement (MoA) and the contract between the two consultant companies regarding the Angat Dam and Dyke Safety Program were signed recently.”

This time, two nouns—“the memorandum of agreement (MoA)” and “the contract between the two consultant companies regarding Angat Dam and Dyke Safety Program”—form a compound subject that clearly needs the past-tense plural form of the verb (“were signed”).

Even with these further corrections, however, that rather convoluted sentence can still stand structural improvement. Here’s how I would further fine-tune it for easier reading:

“The rehabilitation of Angat Dam is about to start after the recent signing of the memorandum of agreement (MoA) and the contract between the two consultant companies on the Angat Dam and Dyke Safety Program.”

So what is this rather complicated grammar lesson telling us? Don’t use “as well as” if it will just complicate matters for you and for the readers. When in doubt, use good, old reliable “and” instead.
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¹The conjoining prepositional phrases “along with” and “in addition to” have the same grammar effect as the conjunction “as well as.” When they add another subject to a singular subject in a sentence, the verb in the sentence is always considered singular: “The labor arbiter along with the union lawyer understands this point.” “The labor arbiter in addition to the union lawyer understands this point.” The following reconstructions of these two sentences clearly show the logic of why the verb in them should be singular in form: “Along with the union lawyer, the labor arbiter understands this point.” “In addition to the union lawyer, the labor arbiter understands this point.”

²Broadly, a parenthetical is added information that can be removed from a sentence without affecting its grammatical correctness. However, a parenthetical isn’t necessarily optional or semantically expendable. For a comprehensive discussion of parentheticals, click this link to “The parenthesis and its uses.”
 
SHORT TAKES IN MY MEDIA ENGLISH WATCH:

(1) The Philippine Star: Dangling modifying phrase

Reject new bus franchise applications
 
MANILA, Philippines - Transportation and Communications Secretary Mar Roxas has ordered the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) to reject new bus franchise applications for bus routes covered by a moratorium on new franchises to avert corruption and red tape even at the application stage.

Roxas said the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) is ensuring a transparent and fair policy in the LTFRB’s processing of franchises as part of the government’s “matuwid na daan” principle and eliminating the “wang-wang” mentality in the bureaucracy.

In the lead sentence above, the modifying phrase “to avert corruption and red tape even at the application stage” dangles, unable to latch on to a subject that it can logically modify. None of the several nouns and noun phrases proximate to it (“new franchises,” “moratorium on new franchises,” “new bus franchise applications,” etc.) qualifies as its possible subject.

Its true subject, of course, is the proper noun “Transportation and Communications Secretary Mar Roxas” some 26 words away. For a proper modification to take place, that dangling modifying phrase must be positioned as close as possible to this proper noun.  

See how neatly and clearly the modification is achieved when we move that modifying phrase from the tail end of that sentence to the front:

“To avert corruption and red tape even at the application stage, Transportation and Communications Secretary Mar Roxas has ordered the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) to reject new bus franchise applications for bus routes covered by a moratorium on new franchises.”

I know that many editors are averse to putting a modifying phrase up front of a lead sentence of a news story, but I think they should make exceptions when doing otherwise would result in confusing sentences with modifying phrases dangling at the tail end of the sentence.

(2) The Philippine Star: Misuse of the hyphenated compound word “set-up”

Heists still on in Baler despite crime watchdog
 
BALER, Aurora, Philippines  – Robbers have struck again in this province, victimizing a couple and an owner of a printing shop, virtually mocking a newly set-up citizens’ anti-crime watchdog formed to stem the rash of heists.

The latest victims were Rolando Lelis and his wife who had just closed their grocery store at the Baler public market and were walking toward the gate when an armed man declared a holdup.

Let’s make something very clear here. The words “set” and “up” taken together can be spelled in three possible ways.

When combined as the single word “setup,” the word becomes a noun that means “the way in which something is organized, planned or arranged.” The same thing happens when the two words are hyphenated to form the compound word “set-up,” so these two words—“setup” and “set-up”—are both nouns that mean exactly the same thing.

On the other hand, when the two words are spelled separately as “set up,” they become a transitive verb that means “to establish, assemble, or erect.”

It’s in this sense as a verb that “set up” is being used in the lead sentence above. Proof of this is that the adverb “newly” is being used to modify it. The phrase “a newly set up” is, in fact, an adjective phrase modifying the noun phrase “citizens’ anti-crime watchdog,” where “set up” is a past participle functioning as an adjective modified by the adverb “newly”: “a newly set up citizens’ anti-crime watchdog.”

So, to yield this meaning in written English (the effect of hyphenation doesn’t become apparent in spoken English), the lead sentence above should be rewritten using the two-word unhyphenated “set up,” as follows:

“Robbers have struck again in this province, victimizing a couple and an owner of a printing shop, virtually mocking a newly set up citizens’ anti-crime watchdog formed to stem the rash of heists.”

(3) The Philippine Star: Wrong singular pronoun for plural antecedent

MMDA paints bike lanes blue
 
MANILA, Philippines - The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority has painted the motorcycle lanes along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City and Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard in Pasay City blue to make it more visible to motorcycle riders.

MMDA chairman Francis Tolentino said the lanes will now be called “blue lanes.”

“Our men worked feverishly, round the clock to paint the lanes blue so that they could be easily identified,” Tolentino said.

The grammar error in the lead sentence above is just an oversight, I hope. Since its antecedent is the plural noun “motorcycle lanes,” the singular pronoun “it” is erroneous. The correct pronoun is the plural “them,” so that lead sentence should be corrected as follows:

“The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority has painted the motorcycle lanes along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City and Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard in Pasay City blue to make them more visible to motorcycle riders.”

(4) The Manila Times: Subject-verb disagreement error

Power users, city council urge review of coal plant deal

GENERAL SANTOS CITY: Local power consumers and the General Santos City council has pressed for a review of the agreement between the South Cotabato Electric Cooperative II (Socoteco II) and Conal Holdings Corp. on the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Maasim town, Saranggani province.

Various groups led by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, Freedom from Debt Coaliation and Panaghugpong Mindanaw held protests recently against the deal, which they feared might lead to higher power rates.

As in the very basic grammar error in Item 3 above, I hope the subject-verb disagreement error in the lead sentence above is also just an oversight. The compound subject “local power consumers and the General Santos City council” is obviously plural in form, so the verb should be the plural form “have pressed” instead of the singular form “has pressed,” as in this rewrite of the grammatically flawed lead sentence:

“Local power consumers and the General Santos City council have pressed for a review of the agreement between the South Cotabato Electric Cooperative II (Socoteco II) and Conal Holdings Corp. on the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Maasim town, Saranggani province.”

(5) Manila Bulletin: Confusion from excessive exactitude

Electrification of small villages on

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines –The new management of the Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative (Zamcelco) has started its P18,734,140.40 energization program for 37 sitios (small villages) that it expects to complete before the end of 2011 even as the electrification of five other sitios is currently handled by the Department of Energy (DoE).

This developed after National Electrification Administration (NEA)-appointed Zamcelco project supervisor and concurrent acting general manager Jesus Y. Castro announced the scheduled arrival this weekend of DoE Assistant Secretary Josefina Asirit to visit the cooperative and meet with agency officials and personnel.

What did you feel upon coming across the figure “P18,734,140.40” in the lead sentence above? Were you impressed by its precision or turned off by the reporter’s giving the peso figures for that energization program down to the last centavo?

Excessive exactitude like this is, of course, a big no-no in news journalism. It may be understandable for neophyte reporters to aim for such extreme accuracy in their news reports, but editors are supposed to routinely round off such figures so they won’t end up annoying readers.

Here’s how an alert and seasoned desk editor might have rounded off that figure:

“The new management of the Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative (Zamcelco) has started its P18.7-million energization program for 37 sitios (small villages) that it expects to complete before the end of 2011 even as the electrification of five other sitios is currently handled by the Department of Energy (DoE).”

(6) The Manila Times: Misuse of the adverb “constantly”

Education officials bitten by travel bug

EMPLOYEES and junior officers of the Department of Education (DepEd) on Saturday complained that officials of the department are constantly traveling abroad in violation of its own austerity measure.

“How can you give quality education if they stopped giving trainings and seminars while officials go abroad at least three times a month?” employees closely working with the office of Education Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro said.

The employees lamented that at present, the DepEd is being run by officers-in charge (OIC) because a number of officials, including Luistro, are out of the country.

In the context of the lead sentence above, the adverb “constantly” is being used in the sense of “incessant” or “continually occurring or recurring.” In turn, “continually” means “continuing indefinitely in time without interruption.” In reality, it’s extremely doubtful if the DepEd officials could realistically do that level of travelling no matter how hard-bitten they might be by the travel bug. Perhaps “traveling abroad so frequently” will be more like it, so that sentence will be much better off and factual if rewritten as follows:

“Employees and junior officers of the Department of Education (DepEd) on Saturday complained that officials of the department are traveling abroad so frequently in violation of its own austerity measure.”

[Joe Carillo]

Request for clarification sent in by e-mail by Ime M. (October 27, 2011):

Can you give an example of a sentence where “as well as” is used correctly? Thank you for your message. Very enlightening. Keep up the good work.

Ime

My reply to Ime:

Dear Imee,

Here’s an example of correct “as well as” usage:

“A minimum deposit as well as a maintaining balance is required to open a savings account.” 

In “as well as” sentences, only the singular noun “a minimum deposit” is considered as the subject of the sentence, and the noun phrase “as well as a maintaining balance” is considered a parenthetical or optional element, so the verb is the singular form “is required” and not the plural form “are required.”

This becomes clear when that sentence is constructed as follows:

“As well as a maintaining balance, a minimum deposit is required to open a savings account.”

It’s obvious this time that the prepositional phrase “as well as a maintaining balance” is simply a modifier of the entire main clause, “a minimum deposit is required to open a savings account,” where the singular noun phrase “a minimum deposit” is the only subject.

Clearly then, an “as well as” sentence isn’t the same as its counterpart “and” sentence:

“A minimum deposit and a maintaining balance are required to open a savings account.” 

In such “and” sentences, the two nouns form a plural subject that obviously requires the plural form of the verb.

With my best wishes,
Joe Carillo