Let me share my unsettling experience in 2003 when, as general manager of an English-language services company, I ran a want ad for editors. Most of the 100 applicants had an AB in English or mass communication; three were magna cum laudes and six cum laudes; and 10 even had Master’s degrees. But most of their job application letters—with two or three exceptions—were written in disappointingly strange, convoluted, stilted English like this one below:
“Dear Sir/Madam:
“Greetings in Peace!
“Responding with utmost immediacy to your job opportunity ad published on January 6, ____ in the __________, I wish to inform you of my fervor interest in applying for the position of Editor. I am an AB graduate of the University of ______ with distinct recognition as a leader and achiever in the field of debating and as editor-in-chief of the student publication, journals, and other newsletters of the academe.
[The applicant then described a glowing work experience.] “For your evaluation, I am enclosing my résumé as an attachment as a first step in exploring the possibilities of employment in your client’s organization. I would appreciate hearing from you soon.
“Thank you for your consideration and God Bless.”
With such appalling English, I didn’t call the applicants for interview anymore and just decided to run another want ad. This, in fact, was what later motivated me to write
English Plain and Simple: No-Nonsense Ways to Learn Today’s Global Language. First published in 2005, its third revised edition came off the press this mid-September.
For entrants to the country’s work force like those who answered my want ad, my book strongly suggests using plain and simple English: “The English of [their] job application letters is obviously not the English to use when you want to present yourself in the most favorable way to a prospective employer. The truth is that many of us who write in English distrust our own ability to present ourselves in a good light. No matter how educated or experienced we are, we often assume the persona and voice of someone else when we start writing. We take refuge in some pseudo-legal mumbo-jumbo that we think will impress our reader or listener. And once we get started in this legal-sounding language, we become addicted to it. Instead of writing as we would talk, we habitually grasp at these arcane words and phrases in the mistaken belief that like some mantra, they will miraculously make things happen for us.”
It’s evident that not a very high proportion of the graduates of our country’s colleges and universities are being taught or are learning to think, speak, write, and communicate in English clearly, convincingly, and confidently. The shocking inadequacy of the written English of most of those who responded to my want ad for editors is proof positive that they had remained clueless, unaware, and dismissive of the value and virtue of plain and simple English.
Our country’s educational system thus needs to focus vigorously on addressing this serious communication inadequacy of the English of its college graduates.
***
Roly Eclevia, digital creator and writer-editor, observed on my Facebook page: “I visited Landbank’s main office in Makati. An entire floor was occupied by Corporate Communication. I got to talk to the staff, most of them UP and Ateneo graduates. I was shocked to find out they had not heard of and much less read the classics. Milton and Shakespeare were strangers to them and so were the more popular American authors Steinbeck and Hemingway. They had no idea who was Voltaire or Tolstoy or Pushkin or Cervantes.”
My reply to Roly: “A very revealing observation. I must say though that not having heard or read those foreign English classic masters doesn’t seem to be a very serious problem. Rather than obligating our students to read them, maybe we should consider encouraging our students to shift instead to reading our own English classics written by Filipino writers.”
Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in
The Manila Times:
The shocking inadequacy of our written EnglishNext:
Avoiding very officious English stock phrases – 1 October 5, 2023
Visit Jose Carillo’s English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter and e-mail me at j8carillo@yahoo.com.
