Links to my 2021 "English Plain and Simple" columns in The Manila Times

[Joe Carillo]

2021: "English Plain and Simple" columns in The Manila Times

(This listing is in reverse chronological order, the latest first. To access and read a particular column, simply click the indicated link.)

November 25, 2021:
Parentheticals for spontaneity in our prose

November 18, 2021:
Conditional sentences that don’t use “if”

November 11, 2021:
The grammar of “if”-conditional sentences

November 4, 2021:
The perfect progressive tense takes its time

October 28, 2021:
Timeline for the future perfect tense

October 21, 2021:
Timeline for the past perfect tense

October 14, 2021:
Timeline for the present perfect tense

October 7, 2021:
Going back not only to the future perfect

September 30, 2021:
Did the First Mass historians ever talk to one another? - 3

September 23, 2021:
Did the First Mass historians ever talk to one another? - 2

September 16, 2021:
Did the First Mass historians ever talk to one another? - 1

September 9, 2021:
How plain English and legalese differ, or vice versa- 3

September 2, 2021:
How plain English and legalese differ, or vice versa- 2

August 26, 2021:
How plain English and legalese differ, or vice versa- 1

August 19, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 21

August 12, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 20

August 5, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 19

July 29, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 18

July 22, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 17

July 15, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 16

July 8, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 15

July 1, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 14

June 24, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 13

June 17, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 12

June 10, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 11

June 3, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 10

May 27, 2021:
Pause in series

May 20, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 9

May 13, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 8

May 6, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 7

April 29, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 6

April 22, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 5

April 15, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years –4

April 8, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 3

April 1, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 2

March 25, 2021:
Getting our history right after 500 years – 1

March 18, 2021:
A student’s travails in modular distance learning

March 11, 2021:
After 500 years, will the true site of the first Holy Mass be affirmed at last?

March 4, 2021:
The germ of a great idea remembered

February 25, 2021:
Avoiding improper uses of the conjunction “as”

February 18, 2021:
When can history be told in the present tense?

February 11, 2021:
The art of avoiding needless voice shifts

February 4, 2021:
Wrong word usage and verbosity in journalism - 3

January 28, 2021:
Wrong word usage and verbosity in journalism - 2

January 21, 2021:
Wrong word usage and verbosity in journalism - 1

January 14, 2021:
Not all our assertions can be established truths

January 7, 2021:
How inversion can clarify baffling sentences

December 31, 2020:
Disrupting the declarative sentence pattern for emphasis

December 24, 2020:
What constitutes a dependent clause in reported speech - 2

December 17, 2020:
What constitutes a dependent clause in reported speech - 1

December 10, 2020:
Inverted sentences have a subject-verb agreement peculiarity

December 3, 2020:
Sequencing tenses in sentences with relative clauses

November 26, 2020:
Aspiring writer in storm-ravaged town appeals for help

November 19, 2020:
When notional agreement overrides grammatical agreement

November 12, 2020:
Should adjective clauses always be reduced to adjective phrases? - II

November 5, 2020:
Should adjective clauses always be reduced to adjective phrases? - I

October 29, 2020:
Avoiding awful misuses of the English possessive

October 22, 2020:
Proper punctuation is the mark of a good writer

October 15, 2020:
Redundancies, imprecisions in mass media English

October 8, 2020:
Is there such a thing as a complex-complex sentence?

October 1, 2020:
Constructing the perfect tenses in the passive voice

September 24, 2020:
A letter from a bereaved German widower

September 17, 2020:
A curious encounter about the use of position titles

September 10, 2020:
Make sure your endearment doesn’t bungle its comparative

September 3, 2020:
How the English demonstrative pronouns work

August 27, 2020:
How the English demonstrative pronouns work

August 20, 2020:
When can history be narrated in the present tense?

August 13, 2020:
Handling pronouns with unclear antecedents

August 6, 2020:
The need for caution in asserting what’s good or bad English

July 30, 2020:
Travails with learning just a smattering of Latin

July 16, 2020:
Complications when using hyphenated possessives

July 9, 2020:
When splitting infinitives becomes a must for clarity’s sake

July 2, 2020:
“What” isn’t always singular when it leads off an assertion

June 25, 2020:
Determiners as functional elements of sentence structure

June 18, 2020:
Is it advisable to drop “that” from reported speech?

June 11, 2020:
Play it by ear whether to use an infinitive or gerund

June 4, 2020:
Why we shouldn’t ever stop learning English grammar

May 28, 2020:
How to deal with long, complicated noun phrases

May 21, 2020:
How litotes and the double negative differ

May 14, 2020:
Revisiting the “who”/“whom” grammar conundrum

May 7, 2020:
“Are you using ‘were’ in the indicative or subjunctive?”

April 30, 2020:
“Don’t get caught using wrong double negatives!”

April 23, 2020:
“The problem with overellipted sentence constructions”

April 16, 2020:
“Have you had a look” or “Did you have a look?”

April 9, 2020:
Using the right tense for reported speech

April 2, 2020:
How “even though” and “even if” differ in sense

March 26, 2020:
How English auxiliary verbs differ from linking verbs

March 19, 2020:
How the English past imperfect tense works

March 12, 2020:
The great importance of parallelism in good writing – 4

March 5, 2020:
The great importance of parallelism in good writing – 3

February 27, 2020:
The great importance of parallelism in good writing – 2

February 20, 2020:
The great importance of parallelism in good writing – 1

February 13, 2020:
Appositives for more engaging writing

February 6, 2020:
Back to the perfect infinitive using modals

January 31, 2020:
The maverick behavior of verbs in the subjunctive

January 24, 2020:
“12 Selected Essays by Jose Carillo”

January 16, 2020:
“Bring” or “take” and “come” or “go”?

January 9, 2020:
The perfect infinitive and its uses

January 2, 2020:
The perfect gerund and its uses