Going back to basics: Fact-checking makes the difference

Social media has, without a shred of doubt, significantly exploded in 2019 such that it has also become the trend in communication and the main source of news, especially at this point. A few years ago, I didn’t really understand what kind of a tool it would turn out. Today, it’s no longer difficult to understand that it’s seriously impacting how people communicate and how it’s transforming the way customers and business owners interact. Any organization that doesn’t use social media is missing out on a defining advantage.

Based on this article titled “Global social media statistics research summary 2024” posted on 24 April 2024 on smartinsight.com, more than half of the world population use social media and the average daily time spent on it is 2 hr 23 min. As of 2023, 266 million new users came online. Social media doesn’t only bring a new level of efficiency to advertising brands or products but to influencing social change and the English lexicon of non-native speakers. The Philippine 2022 presidential election utilized social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter (now X), to its fullest potential. People relied on it more than the news programs on both TV and radio so much so that the turnaround wasn’t surprising, to say the least.

Social media platforms are evidently efficient in the dissemination of information. It’s no longer a trivia how much of a powerful tool it turned out be now more than ever. But, as always, the advantages that come with them are also accompanied by disadvantages. Two strong examples of the disadvantages are misinformation and disinformation and right under the latter is fake news. As an educator though, what I’m more critical about is the misinformation that carries with it the unavoidable proliferation of grammar blunders such as misspelled words; (the old but still tricky and all over the place) jejemon language, (as pedantic as they are but forever relevant and essential) incorrect prepositions, and, the eventual focal point of this post: misused idioms such as “add salt to the injury” when it should be add insult to the injury or fixed expressions gone wrong such as “back in reality” instead of back to reality. Both examples fall under Filipinisms. The continuous proliferation of those grammar goofs on social media posts contributes to the continuous decline of the country’s overall performance in the recently concluded International Student Assessment (PISA) of 81 countries, released in December 2023, the Philippines was ranked the sixth lowest in reading comprehension with no significant improvement in this area since it was first assessed in the 2018. The same goes for our latest English Proficiency Index (EPI) global ranking as assessed by the global education company “EF First” and as pointed out by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies in the article titled “Filipinos’ declining English proficiency alarms foreign business groups” in October 2023. On the bright side, we ranked second in Asia.

There’s, of course, the more complex level and more examples of those grammar blunders but, to make the basis of our discussion short, I’ll keep the scope to just one. That way, it’d be easier to understand and retain.

I’m talking about this (fixed) phrase that’s also an idiom and as yet another offspring of my Filipino concoctions’ series whose pioneer is “masteral”: “back to basic.”

As can be seen from the examples in the screenshots swarming on Facebook (and other social networking sites), which I only captured by time I reached to this part of the blog post using “back to basic” as the keyword. Apparently, it’s not only being used in statuses on Facebook but on different social media platforms every half an hour or so.

The issue here is, “back to basic” is wrong. Writing or saying it that way is like writing and saying “statistic” for Statistics and “economic” for Economics as school subjects or “downstair” instead of downstairs when referring to the ground floor of a building or on a lower floor than you are. The correct form has always been “back to basics” with the “s” coming with the last word—always! The reason is, this phrase is actually a fixed expression (sometimes called fixed phrase) because the word order and pattern don’t change. The wording can’t be changed.

Image Source: yourdictionary.com

But as stated earlier, social media has the power to make those incorrect fixed phrases or idioms into a seemingly correct one because information on those platforms are unregulated and spread as rapidly as it’s being picked up by millions of students, even teachers, and the general public. This will then become a precedent for it being reused until it becomes a vicious cycle.

That vicious cycle is the problem. That’s also how it also works when teachers, elders, or authority figures do the same: unconsciously sharing or teaching false, unverified information. In an ideal world, social media and said group of people mustn’t do that. In reality, it happens more often than not. This goes to show that I also had my fair share of misinformation during my stint as a University Instructor. In spite of that, I made sure that when I was teaching short courses of English Transcribing Tips to Office Management students back in the day, I fact-check via various grammar sites and dictionaries’ the lesson plan’s content (e.g., what is the correct preposition that follow or precede a certain verb or noun; is there a need to pluralize metric system units and symbols; and do fixed expressions change in structure).

Just because text-speak, Filipinisms, nonstandard English vocabulary, and other grammar goofs are tolerated in this digital age doesn’t mean there’s no need for fact-checking. Our fact-checking—by evaluating, rechecking, or reviewing—must extend not just to random pieces of information or FB/X/IG posts that we post or repost on social media but to what we impart to someone and throw somewhere out there whenever we need to write something down or simply speak our minds. For educators, to our lesson plans that cover the technical aspects of Standard English, which could be a small thing but has bigger impacts on how students develop their knowledge of the subject more so on their performance in standardized tests of English language proficiency. The latter doesn’t only include IELTS and TOEFL—where text-speak, Filipinisms, nonstandard English vocabulary, and other grammar goofs don’t exist—but even regular English exams and from other school subjects’ that use the language.

We’re all educators and parents one way or the other. Let’s cultivate the habit helping correct English remain thriving in this era where text-speak, Filipinisms, nonstandard vocabulary, and other grammar goofs are infiltrating the youth and students’ English lexicon—blurring the lines between formal and informal communication.

Text-speak, Filipinisms, nonstandard vocabulary, and other grammar goofs can be avoided if we all go back to basics by fact-checking. It does make the difference!

Featured Photo Source: vectorvest.com

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