My two sons, 21 and 14 years of age, have lately been watching with keen interest the ongoing series of student debates on ANC’s TV program “Square Off.” As you may already know, this TV show pits two-person debating teams from various universities and colleges, with the young speakers taking on the roles of their adult counterparts in Congress in debating various highly controversial issues.
I really can’t find fault in the English of most of the young debaters, whom I presume to be among the best and most articulate from their respective schools. Despite the pressures of time and competition, their speeches are generally free of such language scourges as footloose modifiers, mangled idiomatic expressions, subject-verb disagreements, wrong pronoun usage, and frequent misuses of prepositional phrases and prepositional idioms. And on the whole, I think, their English pronunciation and accents are generally beyond reproach as well.
STOCK PHOTO OF ANC "SQUARE OFF" DEBATES - FOR REPRESENTATION PURPOSES ONLY
But as my two sons are quick to point out whenever we have the chance to watch those TV debates together, the body English of many of the debaters leave much to be desired, and their overuse of such clichés as “at the end of the day” and “at this point in time” can be so infuriating at times. Often, in fact, my sons would urge me to write about those things in this column in the hope that the message would somehow reach the debaters.
“Look at how that debater endlessly chops the air with both hands,” my eldest son said one time, a pained look in his face. “Shouldn’t his coach remind him that he’s not in a karate competition?”
“Well, son, that mannerism is part of his body English,” I said, “and I’m afraid that none of my English-usage prescriptions could correct it. Only a knowledgeable public speaking trainer or trusted friend can wean him from it without shattering his self-confidence.”
“But what about this girl who seems to be always sneering at her opponent?” my younger son asked me another time. “Doesn’t she realize it’s bad form to sneer in public, in full view of the TV audience at that?”
“You’re right, but she probably isn’t even aware of it,” I explained. “That’s the problem with TV—it’s a terribly cruel medium. That habitual facial expression of hers probably won’t even be noticed if she were debating onstage in a big school auditorium, but it gets magnified when the TV camera does a medium close-up of her. Somebody has to call her attention to it, though, and she would need a lot of facial practice in front of a mirror to get rid of it.”
“Now look at this guy, dad,” my elder son butted in. “Why does he keep on obnoxiously repeating ‘Ladies and gentlemen’ or ‘Madame Speaker’ in practically every sentence of his speech? He must have used it a dozen times already in three minutes. Isn’t there a debating rule against that?”
“I’m not sure, but habitual expressions like that are actually semantic crutches. When people speak at the speed of light, their brains may not be able to send their next thought to their tongues fast enough. That’s why they need those expressions to fill in the semantic gaps.”
“I see … But what about this other debater, dad? He’s now on his 15th ‘at the end of the day’ and the debate is still far from over. Hearing this cliché many times over takes away the joy in watching these debates. Can’t he and the other speakers just say ‘ultimately’ or ‘after all’? And why don’t the people behind these debates ban that terrible cliché?”
“Patience, my son, patience! Who knows? Without knowing it, some of those people may be habitual users of that dreadful cliché themselves. Anyway, I promise to write about this in my column. Let’s just hope they’d have the chance to read it before the new round of debates next week.” (February 23, 2008)
From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times,
February 23, 2008 issue © 2008 by The Manila Times.
All rights reserved.---------
What do you think of Jose Carillo’s take on clichés and bad body English? Click the Reply button to post your thoughts on Jose Carillo’s English Forum.
