When I used to do the Forum’s regular media English watch from 2009 to 2018, a strangely recurrent grammar error I’d find in news reporting was the misuse of the subordinating conjunction “as.” I say strangely because “as” is a basic conjunction that Filipino learners of English are expected to have already mastered by the time they enter college. So every time I stumbled on another mass media misuse of “as,” I’d get the feeling that both reporter and desk editor or perhaps their respective English teachers must have never fully understood its grammar and semantics.

Take a look at this glaring misuse of “as” in the lead of a 2011 story from a major TV network’s news website: “Taal Volcano showed signs of activity as state volcanologists recorded seven quakes there in the last 24 hours.” (This seems like déjà vu, by the way, since Taal has been getting restive again this week.) That use of “as” is flawed because it gives the absurd sense that Taal, as if resenting human intrusion, showed signs of activity when — or even because —the state volcanologists took the trouble of recording the earthquakes around it.

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