With less than a month before the Philippine national elections, it's understandable that you and other members of Jose Carillo's English Forum might want some leeway to talk in the Forum about your respective choices for president and vice president. The Forum's Lounge section is therefore opening a window of opportunity for you to do so for the rest of the official campaign period. In keeping with the Forum's nonpolitical and nonpartisan nature, however, please confine your commentary within the bounds of thoughtful, intelligent, and civilized discourse—and in proper English, please. Feel free to endorse your chosen candidates and justify your choice; do so now before it's too late for your opinion to matter!
Even as most everybody gets preoccupied with the election campaign, however, the Forum remains steadfast in its advocacy for good English. For this week's edition, I have critiqued three instances of highly questionable English usage in three of the major Philippine broadsheets. And for your time out from English grammar, the Forum takes a peep at four recent biographies showing the seamier, even shocking side of the iconic Mahatma Gandhi and of three literary greats in English—Charles Dickens, John Cheever, and V.S. Naipaul.
