Militants splashed Facebook, Twitter, and other social media with this agitprop poster days before and on the very eve of the UAAP81 Finals today, December 2, 2018, that pits the Ateneo de Manila University's Blue Eagles against the University of the Philippines' Maroons for the basketball championship: This poster drew scores of disgusted responses on Twitter like the following:Pilosopong Pinoy @Pinoy Kritiko
Sa sobrang excited mong magtweet, mali tuloy ang grammar(Urge). More than the grammar gaffe, please spare this game from your “Political URGES”. Let’s enjoy this #UAAP81Finals, without the political color, divisive rhetoric and your pathetic hatred of the President.
It likewise provoked scores of angry reprimands on Facebook like this one:Odette Dequito-JavierSeriously??? Ganito and grammar ng Ateneans at mga taga-Peyups?
Basic SVA sablay
Odette then addressed me directly on the Facebook discussion thread with the following request:Odette Dequito-Javier Sir Jose A. Carillo pakituruan nga po mga ito ng basic subject and verb agreement...
Here's my reply to Odette as posted on the Facebook discussion thread late in the evening tonight, December 1, 2018:Jose A. CarilloOdette, I've just rebooted my desktop and finally saw the "wear BLACK" poster that drew such a long, critical, and dismissive discussion thread about its English grammar. The poster was surprisingly just atop your comment requesting me to "Sir Jose A. Carillo pakituruan nga po mga ito ng basic subject and verb agreement..."
That statement's use of the singular form of the verb "urges" for the plural compound subject "ADMU Sanggunian and UP Diliman USC" indeed constitutes a subject-verb disagreement error, but I'd say that it's a forgivable proofreading or typographical error arising from simple carelessness or haste rather than actual grammar cluelessness. (This error happens to most of us every now and then so I don't think we should crucify anyone for it.)
What I think is more objectionable about that statement is its structural obtuseness that's actually bad grammar. You see, the sentence "As a protest against violence, impunity, and misogyny, the ADMU Sanggunian and UP Diliman USC urges everyone to wear black for tomorrow's game" exhibits an annoying grammar error that's neither a "misplaced modifier" nor "dangling modifier" nor "squinting modifier"; I humorously call it in my Forum as a "footloose modifier" (
"Reining in those footloose modifiers"). See how the front-end modifying prepositional phrase "as a protest against violence, impunity, and misogyny" fails to do a proper modifying job because it just couldn’t latch on or logically connect to the compound subject "the ADMU Sanggunian and UP Diliman USC." (Read it more slowly to get what I mean.)*
When we try transferring that modifying phrase to a position right after the compound subject, the sentence will read as follows: "The ADMU Sanggunian and UP Diliman USC urges everyone as a protest against violence, impunity, and misogyny to wear black for tomorrow's game." I think you'll agree that the sense and syntax of that sentence got even more muddled. And it will get even more muddled when we move that modifying phrase to the tail end: "The ADMU Sanggunian and UP Diliman USC urges everyone to wear black for tomorrow's game as a protest against violence, impunity, and misogyny." (This time it looks like "tomorrow's game" will be played "as a protest against violence, impunity, and misogyny," don't you think?) That's what a footloose modifier does to befuddle readers.
Having said that, Odette, I'll now go straight to this suggested reconstruction of that structurally and grammatically problematic sentence: "To protest against violence, impunity, and misogyny, the ADMU Sanggunian and UP Diliman USC urges everyone to wear black for tomorrow's game." You can see that simply converting the "as"-modifying phrase into an infinitive phrase (a "to"-phrase) does a neat and clean correcting act, making that phrase directly and properly modify the compound subject and getting rid of that obnoxious footloose modifier.
I'm done with the grammar lesson you requested and I hope it would also reach and benefit whoever conceived and wrote that problematic poster statement.
Odette Dequito-Javier Thank you, Sir Jose Carillo for taking time out to explain it. More power po!
Jose A. Carillo You're welcome, Odette! Enjoy the UAAP Finals tomorrow, and let's hope the better performing team wins!
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*To make the grammatical aberration clearer to grasp, perhaps I should note additionally that the frontline modifying prepositional phrase "as a protest against violence, impunity, and misogyny" strongly but wrongly implies that the compound subject "ADMU Sanggunian and UP Diliman USC" together constitute the form of the protest itself rather than its instigators, which they obviously are in fact. This is a big problem with "as"-prepositional phrases used as frontline descriptor of the subject that follows, giving a thunderous but deceptively wrong sense to the whole statement.CLICK THIS LINK FOR RELATED FORUM READING ON FOOTLOOSE MODIFIERS:
