How English makes do to evoke the sense of the past imperfect

Unlike the so-called Romance languages, the English language doesn’t have a well-developed past imperfect tense. In fact, English doesn’t inflect its verbs at all for the imperfect tense in much the same way that it doesn’t for its future tense. All it has done to denote the imperfect—meaning the sense of continuous, incomplete, or coincident past actions—is to combine the past progressive form of its verbs with the past tense forms of the verb “be.” And to compensate for its inability to inflect verbs for the past imperfect, English also came up with three special ways of evoking it.

I discussed the mechanisms of the English past imperfect in an essay that I wrote for my English-usage column in The Manila Times in 2004, “Dealing better with the past imperfect.” I have posted that essay in this week’s edition of the Forum to help members and guests become more conversant with the of use this less-familiar tense form of English. If you aren’t confident now in using the past imperfect, you will surely be after studying the grammar prescriptions offered in this essay.

Dealing better with the past imperfect

Many of the languages closely related to English have a well-developed imperfect tense, that tense which shows a past action or condition as incomplete, continuous, or coincident with another action. This is true with Spanish, Italian, and French; they all elaborately inflect or morph their verbs for the imperfect. Those who have tried memorizing the many Spanish inflections for its preterito imperfectos, for instance, know how complicated this could get.

In contrast, English does not inflect its verbs for the imperfect, in much the same way that it doesn’t for its future tense. The farthest English has gone to formally capture the essence of the imperfect—the past imperfect in particular—is the past progressive. The English past progressive, of course, either shows an action in progress at a specific time in the past, or one in progress in the past when another action happened or interrupted it.

To better understand how English evokes the imperfect tense, it will be instructive for us to formally distinguish first between the “imperfect” and “perfect” in traditional grammar. Recall that verbs, apart from indicating the time element, also conveys other information about the verb’s action. This information, which is called aspect, shows whether the action is continuous, complete or incomplete, in progress, or habitual. Some languages, like those mentioned earlier, have several of these aspects and reflect them through the inflections of their verbs. In contrast, English has only two aspects: the perfect, which refers to a past action that was completed or “perfected,” as in “She danced with me,” and the imperfect, which refers to a past action that was still in progress or was incomplete, as in “She was dancing with me.”

We can see that the imperfect aspect of English verbs is grammatically formed in the same as their past progressive, which as we know simply combines the past tense of the verb “be” with the main verb’s—ing or present participle form. For the verb “dance,” for instance, the imperfect singular aspect is “was dancing” and the imperfect plural aspect is “were dancing.” Also called the continuous participle, this basic form of the English imperfect is meant to describe an action or event that was in progress in the past. To form the past imperfect, however, we must make it clear that the unfolding action or event was unfinished or interrupted, not “perfected,” as in these sentences: “We were touring Paris when the recall order came.” “She ran the business while her husband was gallivanting in Europe.”

Another way of saying this is that in English, a simple past progressive statement like, say, “We were touring Paris” is not enough to establish the past imperfect aspect. It always needs a time frame established by another past action or condition. Thus, the statement “We were touring Paris” is meaningful only in the context of being an answer to a previously asked question like, say, “What were you doing when the recall order came?” That question, in tandem with the past progressive “We were touring Paris,” establishes the statement’s imperfect aspect.

The past progressive is, thankfully for users of English, not the only way English can evoke the past imperfect. To compensate for its inability to inflect verbs for the various shades of this aspect, the language came up with three other ways of capturing the sense of continuous, incomplete, or coincident past actions. They are as follows:

“ Used” + the verb’s infinitive form. This form elegantly expresses repeated, regular, or habitual actions or situations in the past: “We used to dance all night every summer.” “Dreams of Vermont winters used to obsess me in my youth.” “The couple used to host lavish parties until the Asian economic crisis crippled their export business.”

“ Would” + the verb’s basic form (the verb stem). “We would dance all night every summer.” “Every night the astronomer would wait for the stars to manifest themselves in the sky.” One caveat here: the past imperfect usage of “would” is not the same as its conditional usage, as in “If the weather were clear, we would dance all night at the terrace.”
The verb’s simple past tense + an adverb of frequency. “We were always dancing partners in our younger days.” “She often sang each time I played the piano.” “We rarely complained whenever she made impossible demands.”

To sum up, the English past imperfect always conveys the idea of someone doing something or something happening when something else happened. Its job is always to emphasize the continuation or interruption of a past action, in contrast to the past perfect, which always makes sure of putting a finis to that past action.

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, March 5, 2004, © 2004 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. This essay later appeared as Chapter 53 of the author’s book Give Your English the Winning Edge, © 2009 by Jose A. Carillo. All rights reserved.

Let’s come to grips with the proper use of “however” once and for all

Who can say right now that he or she has totally mastered the usage of “however,” that slippery word that can’t seem to stay put in just one place to make a sentence yield a desired meaning? I have this feeling that not very many can answer that question with an unqualified “Yes!” In my case, for instance, even after dealing with “however” for the umpteenth time in my writing and editing work, I still sometimes catch myself vacillating where to position it in certain sentence constructions. This is because experience has taught me, sometimes at great risk of social or professional embarrassment, that “however” can make subtle or profound changes in meaning and nuance—even in function—when it’s toggled across clauses and phrases or across sentences. And sometimes, “however” won’t do justice at all to the idea I want to express, so I need to discard and replace it with a more compliant conjunction or adverb.

To put some rough science to the usage of “however,” I wrote a two-part essay about how it works for my English-usage column in The Manila Times in November of 2005. I have posted that essay in this week’s edition of the Forum to give you a much surer footing when building sentences with this very useful but sometimes exasperatingly difficult-to-use word. (August 20, 2010)

The use and misuse of “however” as a function word  

One of the most misunderstood and misused words in English could very well be “however,” which works either as a conjunction or as an adverb. This is because many writers, no matter what their writing style may be and no matter how good their English may look, often tumble and fumble when using this very basic and very important function word.

     

Consider these representative samples of “however” misuse that I have gathered (all italicizations of quoted text mine):

(1) From an online essay on legal matters: “Correctly, both decisions are cited as saying that conversations and correspondence between the President and public officials are privileged…Once a firm decision, however, has been reached, like who will pay for the Venable contract, the conclusion reached is a matter of public concern no longer covered by privilege.”

(2) From a state university’s admission prospectus: “If however, some graduation requirements are completed beyond the deadline, the student must register during the succeeding semester in order to be considered a candidate for graduation as of the end of that semester.”

(3) From an online update on international trade: “The proposal of the United States…has provided a big push to the negotiations. Trade analysts however are quick to point out that the US and EU proposals amount to nothing more than empty promises once again.”

(4) From a newspaper opinion column: “Anyway, the bill proposing the punitive tax has gone through committee deliberations and has been elevated to the plenary stage. Though this has more to do with legislators in customary fashion, humoring rather than indulging their colleague who is spearheading the bill, however, nonsensical its content and intent.”

The sentence in Item 1 shows the classic case of “however” misplacement. Here, “however” works as an adverb to mean “on the other hand” or “in contrast,” so it should logically be placed either at the beginning of the second sentence, where it can link this sentence firmly to its antecedent sentence, or right after the subordinate clause of the second sentence has been stated fully.

But the problem is that many writers habitually sneak “however” just anywhere in their sentences except up front, creating those abrupt interruptions of thought that needlessly bewilder readers. I think this is the result of being taught by English teachers who foist the grammatically, structurally, and semantically ruinous rule never to begin a sentence with “however,” and about this rule I have more to say later.

The quickest way to make cliffhanger “however” constructions smoother and clearer is to put “however” up front: “Correctly, both decisions are cited…However, once a firm decision has been reached, like [on] who will pay for the Venable contract, the conclusion reached is a matter of public concern no longer covered by privilege.” For even better rhythm, though, “however” can be deferred until the subordinate clause has been stated fully: “Correctly, both decisions are cited…Once a firm decision has been reached, however, like [on] who will pay for the Venable contract, the conclusion reached is a matter of public concern no longer covered by privilege.”

It’s likely that the strong resistance to using “however” to begin sentences has also led to the awkward “however” placements in Items 2 and 3. Note that in Item 2, even if the requisite comma after “if” is supplied to make the sentence structurally correct, the sentence would still sound stilted. But simply putting “however” up front fixes the problem, though: “However, if some graduation requirements are completed beyond the deadline, the student must register…”

In Item 3, on the other hand, the dysfunctional placement of “however” makes it difficult for readers to fathom what that word is supposed to be doing. Putting “however” up front clarifies the logic of the statement: “The proposal of the United States…has provided a big push to the negotiations. However, trade analysts are quick to point out that the US and EU proposals amount to nothing more than empty promises once again.”

In Item 4, “however” also functions as an adverb, this time to mean “no matter how” modifying the adjective “nonsensical.” But setting it off between commas has turned the second sentence into gibberish, no matter if the second comma might have been placed there not by the writer but by the proofreader. For the sentence to make sense, though, that second comma has to be dropped so that “however” can logically form part of the phrase that modifies the word “bill”: “Though this has more to do with legislators in customary fashion, humoring rather than indulging their colleague who is spearheading the bill, however nonsensical its content and intent.”

Now let’s examine the awkward consequences of forcing “however” to do a job that’s better performed by the conjunction “but.”

Take a look at the dysfunctional placements of “however” in the following passages:

(1) From a religious website: “To this, we agree. However in recent years, certain details about the Days have become ‘common knowledge’ to friends and family members of Dazers.”

(2) From a civil society website: “Steiner’s ideas found widespread acceptance in a Europe devastated by the First World War. However the hyperinflation of post World War I Germany demolished practical attempts by Steiner and his colleagues to make the threefold society with an active and independent cultural sphere a reality.”

(3) From an online Philippine festival backgrounder: “[Magellan] died in the encounter. That was on April 27, 1521. The remnants of Magellan’s men were however able to return to Spain to report the incident and the possibility of conquest.”

In Item 1, “however” is supposed to mean “on the other hand,” but without the requisite comma to set it off from the contrasting clause, it erroneously gives the sense of “no matter if” and makes the sentence nonsensical. Adding the comma makes the correct sense emerge: “To this, we agree. However, in recent years, certain details about the Days have become ‘common knowledge’ to friends and family members of Dazers.” The rhythm of the statement gets even better when “however” is made to follow “in recent years” instead: “To this, we agree. In recent years, however, certain details about the Days…”

But there’s actually a much more efficient way of constructing such “however” statements. The problem, though, is that many people are afraid to use it because of this other dubious grammar rule taught by some English teachers: Never use “but” to begin a sentence. This rule, which is meant to discourage incomplete sentences, isn’t of much practical value. On the contrary, using “but” instead of “however” to begin sentences makes their construction more forthright and their meaning clearer, as in this reconstruction of the sentence in Item 1: “To this, we agree. But in recent years, certain details about the Days have become common knowledge…”

In Item 2, “but” can also do a much better job than “however” in delivering the contrastive idea. Take a look: “Steiner’s ideas found widespread acceptance in a Europe devastated by the First World War. But the hyperinflation of post World War I Germany demolished practical attempts by Steiner and his colleagues to make the threefold society…” Similarly, the historical vignette in Item 3 flows much better when “but” is used to begin the third sentence: “[Magellan] died in the encounter. That was on April 27, 1521. But the remnants of Magellan's men were able to return to Spain to report the incident and the possibility of conquest.”

Indeed, unless we want a very strong contrast, “but” is often a better choice than “however” in setting two ideas in opposition. And we need not worry about the claim of some grammarians that “but” is not dignified enough to begin sentences in formal writing. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, for one, assures us that “‘but’ may be used to begin a sentence at all levels of style.”

Now we can perhaps already agree on these more sensible ground rules for using “however” and “but”:

(1) Ignore the misguided caveats against beginning a sentence with “however” or “but.” Those rules only impede clear expression and the logical development of ideas. Up front, both “however” and “but” work just fine when used to mean “on the other hand” or “in contrast.” When “however” is used to mean “nevertheless,” though, the best position for it may not be up front in the sentence, and putting it within the sentence may sometimes also be inappropriate. Using “but” instead can usually fix the problem: “The trip is long and costly. But the destination is worth the trouble.”

(2) Although beginning a sentence with “however” is perfectly acceptable, we must minimize doing it. “However” is an extremely emphatic conjunctive adverb, one that tends to sound more important than the contrastive or opposing idea that it introduces. Functionally, “however” serves best as a conjunctive adverb in compound sentences where two independent clauses are strongly set in opposition: “They want the house; however, their money simply is not enough.”

When we use “however” primarily for such compound constructions, we also get the bonus of not being forced to use it much too often to begin sentences, which admittedly can make our sentences sound too irritatingly legalistic.

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This essay combines and condenses an original two-part version written by Jose A. Carillo for his weekly column “English Plain and Simple” for the November 14 and 21, 2005 issues of The Manila Times. The original two-part version, in essentially the same form, later appeared as Chapters 109 and 110 of the author’s book Give Your English the Winning Edge, © 2009 by Jose A. Carillo. All rights reserved.

Why we need to hyphenate certain compound modifiers

If you regularly follow my weekly critiques of the English usage of the four major Philippine broadsheets, or read at least one of the broadsheets on a daily basis, you must have noticed that their news and feature stories frequently miss hyphenating certain modifiers that need to be hyphenated or do the required hyphenation wrongly. In fact, this happens so often in that I have learned to ignore practically all of such errors except when the faulty hyphenation seriously distorts the semantics of the sentence.

In such cases, I’m left with no choice but to dissect the unhyphenated or wrongly hyphenated modifier, as I have done for the unhyphenated compound modifier “above normal” in this grammatically flawed sentence that I critiqued in this week’s edition of My Media English Watch: “Pagasa said above normal rainfall is expected over most parts of the Bicol region this month which might trigger flood, flashfloods and landslides in the area” (For my full critique of this sentence, click this link to Item 4 of “Four very instructive problematic sentences from the broadsheets”). 

I’m sure that on first reading, you found it not so easy to grasp what that sentence is saying, with the phrase “above normal rainfall” proving to be a major stumbling block to understanding it. We just can’t be absolutely sure whether the adjective “above” is modifying the term “normal rainfall,” or whether the compound modifier “above normal” is modifying “rainfall.”

On closer inspection, of course, we find that the latter is the case. To make sure that everybody understands this, however, we need to hyphenate “above normal” into the compound modifier “above-normal.” Only in this hyphenated form, in fact, can that compound modifier’s function be clearly understood in the corrected sentence: “Pagasa said that above-normal rainfall is expected over most parts of the Bicol region this month, a development that might trigger flood, flashfloods and landslides in the area.”

At this point, I’m sure this big question has already come to mind: Are there hard-and-fast rules for hyphenating compound modifiers? Yes, there certainly are, and I discussed them in an essay, “The matter of hyphenated modifiers,” that I wrote about the subject in May last year. I am posting that essay in this week’s edition of the Forum to give everyone a clear idea precisely how that hyphenation should be done. (August 14, 2010) 

The matter of hyphenated modifiers

One of the early posts in Jose Carillo’s English Forum when it was launched last year was this very interesting question on how to handle multiword modifiers:

In these two sentences, “John attended a 5-day course from April 25 to 29, 2009” and “John attended a 5-days course from April 25 to 29, 2009,” why is the usage of “a 5-day-course” in the first sentence correct and the usage of “a 5-days course” in the second sentence wrong? What is the rule governing this usage?

To understand this seemingly peculiar state of affairs, we must first recognize that a hyphenated modifier that precedes a noun is actually an abbreviated or short-hand form of an equivalent but longer modifying phrase that comes after that noun. For instance, the hyphenated modifier “a five-day course” is the shorthand form of the words that comes after the noun “course” in this longer version of the sentence in question: “John attended a course that ran for five days from April 25 to 29, 2009.” (Simply for consistency of style, I have spelled out the numeral “5” to “five” in these discussions.)

Now, the English grammar rule for converting a modifying phrase that comes after a noun into a modifier that precedes the noun is this: use a hyphen to link the word for the quantity or measure with the word specifying the amount or number, but always change the word for the quantity or measure into its singular form. In the particular example that we are discussing, the quantity or measure is “days,” so we need to change it to the singular form “day.” This is why the long phrase “a course that ran for five days” gets transformed into “a five-day course” instead of “a five-days course” when converted into a modifier that will precede the noun it modifies.

Once we get the hang of this conversion process, we can do it routinely without any problem. However, we will find that matters won’t be as simple when the amount or number specified for the quantity or measure in the modifying phrase that comes after the noun can’t be reduced into a single word. For instance, the specification may be “a course that runs for five and a half days” instead of “five,” or, to use an even more complicated specification, “a painting done during the turn of the century.” What do we do in such instances?

The rule in such situations is this: hyphenate all the words in the multiword modifier that will precede the noun to be modified. For instance, the modifying phrase “that runs for five and a half days” becomes the multi­word modifier “five-and-a-half-day” when placed ahead of the noun, resulting in the form “a five-and-a-half-day seminar.” In the same manner, the modifying phrase “done during the turn of the century” becomes the multi­word modifier “turn-of-the-century” when placed ahead of the noun to be modified, resulting in the form “a turn-of-the-century painting.”

We must always keep in mind that in forming hyphenated modifiers to be placed ahead of the noun they will modify, the rule for changing the specification of quantity or measure from its plural to singular form likewise applies to words that inflect or change in spelling when pluralized, like “woman” to “women,” “party” to “parties,” and “millennium” to “millennia.”

Thus, when we transform the modifier “that consists of five women” in the phrase “a team that consists of five women” into a modifier preceding the noun “team,” it becomes the hyphenated modifier “five-woman” in “five-woman team.” Similarly, “a system with three parties” becomes “a three-party system,” and “a glacial period that lasted 100 millennia” becomes “a 100-millennium glacial period.” (May 9, 2009)

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, May 9, 2009, © 2009 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Sounding profound by quoting someone without attribution

Almost a year ago, I wrote a column in The Manila Times about how some TV news anchors would routinely end their newscasts by reciting without attribution certain pithy statements of famous statesmen or literary writers. This was after my then 23-year-old son and I had a long discussion over its possible unethical aspect, at the end of which we presumed that the news anchors (1) were actually aware that those quoted statements do need attribution every time, but that (2) they just weren’t sensitive enough to the primacy of intellectual property rights and (3) not assertive enough either to resist the routine adding of those unattributed statements to the newscast scripts.

Well, based on my recent viewings of the evening TV newscasts, it’s evident that the same TV news anchors have not at all relented in doing this highly questionable practice. This time, in fact, the subtle hesitance in their voice and body language when quoting without attribution is now completely gone, indicating that doing this is now well within their comfort zone—to be done with neither guilt nor remonstrance.

To revive my personal objection to the practice, I decided to post that essay, “When TV newscasts don’t attribute quoted material,” in this week’s edition of the Forum. Reading the essay should also give Forum members and guests the opportunity to firm up and voice out their own thoughts about the matter. (August 9, 2010)

When TV newscasts don’t attribute quoted material

I’ve always felt that something wasn’t right in the way either of the two news anchors of a major Metro Manila cable TV network would wind up its 10:00 o’clock nightly newscast. One of them would make an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, enunciate something pithily profound like, say, “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment,”* smile a forced smile after a quick swallow of the throat, then make a fast goodbye as if his or her hand had been caught inside a cookie jar.

On one occasion, in fact, I had remarked to my two sons how odd this body language of the news anchors was. When they pressed me for a reason why, I theorized that the anchors probably were reading something on the teleprompter against their will, something very well-worded that wasn’t in their power to think up on their own but have to say anyway because it was in the script. I was almost sure that the anchors were actually reciting quotable quotes from famous historical or literary figures without giving attribution, but because of the pressure of so many other mundane tasks, I never really got to verify my hunch.

But a few nights ago, while one of my sons was watching that nightly newscast, he interrupted my reading to call my attention to what he thought was the confirmation of that hunch. “Dad,” he said, “one of the newscasters has just said, ‘Who does not know another language, does not know his own,’ and he said it as if it was his own idea. It’s actually a direct quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the great German writer. We used that quote in the Quotable Quotes section of Jose Carillo’s English Forum last week, and you asked me to make sure the attribution was done right, remember?”

“Hmm . . . Are you sure the newscaster didn’t attribute the statement to Goethe?” I asked.

“No, Dad, he didn’t,” he said. “Like before, the newscaster seemed hesitant so say the quote but he said it anyway without attribution. So you were right after all—those profound ideas they have gotten into the habit of reciting at the end of each newscast were somebody else’s.”

“I thought so.”

“Isn’t there a law against that?”

“Well, in writing, if you don’t attribute a quoted statement to the author, that would be plagiarism. You’ve stolen intellectual property. In college, your professor could flunk you if you’re caught doing it.”

“So why do those newscast writers persist in not giving credit where credit is due? Do they think the broadcast media is above the law?”

“Maybe not. Perhaps they’re doing it simply as a private joke. They probably want to see how far they can take the newscasters, the station management, and us TV viewers for a ride. They must get such a good laugh watching those newscasters squirm while reciting a quotable quote as if it was their own.”

“That’s mean! Shouldn’t those news writers be sanctioned for that?”

“That’s up to the TV station, son. Perhaps they should just be asked to stop the practice outright, be slapped a fine of perhaps a month’s salary, publicly apologize in their own newscast, and undergo intensive training in journalistic ethics.”

“And what about those newscasters who are routinely conned into mouthing other people’s ideas as if those ideas were theirs?”

“Oh, I suspect they know the game all along. I’ll bet they are aware that each of those quoted statements need attribution. But they just aren’t sensitive enough to the primacy of intellectual property rights, and not assertive enough either to resist the lawless humor of their news writers. So what they need, I think, is a special course in assertiveness training.” (September 5, 2009)  

*This is a quote from Henry David Thoreau, American essayist, poet, and philosopher (1817-1862).

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, September 5, 2009, © 2009 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.