How right of reply differs from right to reply by Jose Carillo

http://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=6819.0
The following observations on journalistic usage were made by Forum member
Sphinx in an e-mail he sent to me: I have always wondered which is the correct
way to put it: the right to reply or the right of reply. The latter sounds quite
awkward to many of us, yet journalists have no problem with that expression.

Also, in todays issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (Young Blood), the writer
wrote: I remember you telling me that youll say yes in a heartbeat if I were to ask
you to marry me. My sense is, it should have read ... youd say yes if I were to ask
you... or just ... if I asked you... for short). This is because would agrees with
were. It might have been ok if he wrote ... youll say yes if I ask you.... The editor
did not correct that.

Please comment.

My reply to Sphinx:

Both right to reply and right of reply are grammatically and semantically correct
phrasing, and I think the latter sounds awkward to you only because you've been
conditioned to think so. In fact, other peoplelawyers in particularwould likely
contend that its actually the former, right to reply, thats awkward if not
downright wrong usage. And even if journalists appear to be comfortable in
interchangeably using right to reply and right of reply, I think they are often
contextually wrong when they do so.

The phrase right to reply is, of course, the generic expression for the natural
impulse or prerogative of anyone to respond to whatever question or claim is made
that pertains to him or her. For instance, if someone frontally accuses a public
official of being dishonest and corrupt, that official obviously has the right to
indignantly reply that the accusation is false even if theres a strong basis for it. The
right to reply is simply a personal rightcall it a human right if you willwith no
legal niceties inherent in the phrase.

In contrast, right of reply is a right founded on law or custom. Its a constitutional

or legal guaranteeand, in some countries, an editorial policy of a news publication
or academic journalthat allows anyone to defend himself or herself against public
criticism in the same venue where that public criticism was published. The right of
reply is the highly contentious area of media law that the Philippines is still
grappling with in the stalled Congressional legislation for the Freedom of
Information Act or FOI.
How right of reply differs from right to reply by Jose Carillo
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Given this big difference in sense between right of reply and right to reply, I
think the real problem is that Philippine media appear to be totally oblivious of the
serious usage problem of using those phrases interchangeably. Indeed, its
disturbing that in one newspaper (Manila Bulletin), the headline was Media
Opposes Right To Reply and the lead sentence was as follows (italicization here
and afterwards mine): Media and the academe opposed yesterday a bill on
the right to reply which they feared might be used in exchange for the passage of a
measure decriminalizing libel.

Another newspaper (The Manila Times) correctly used the phrase in its headline,
Authors nix right of reply in FOI bill, and in the news storys lead sentence,
Authors of the freedom of information (FOI) bill will not accept any proposal that
would incorporate the right of reply (ROR) into their measure But then in an
inexplicable about-face in usage, it later reported that The proposed right to
reply provision, meanwhile, would require a newspaper, or broadcast station to allot
the same amount of space or air time for the reply of a person as that used in a
news report that may have pictured him in a bad light.

A third newspaper (Philippine Daily Inquirer) used the wrong phrase in its headline,
House minority bloc to support FOI bill with right to reply provision. The lead
sentence of the report used the correct phrase, The House minority bloc will only
support a Freedom of Information Bill that has the right of reply provision, and
once again later in the story, but quoted verbatim a legislator who incorrectly
used right to reply three times.

Given this messy state of usage, I think there ought to be a concord of sorts for
consistently using the phrase right of reply in the context of the Freedom of
Information Act.

A special case of the normal sequence-of-tenses rule for reported speech

Now, lets analyze the grammar of this sentence you quoted from an essay featured
in the Young Blood section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer: I remember you
telling me that youll say yes in a heartbeat if I were to ask you to marry me.

Your feeling is that theres something amiss about its grammar, and that the
sentence should have been (1) I remember you telling me that youd say yes in a
heartbeat if I were to ask you to marry me or (2) I remember you telling me that
youd say yes in a heartbeat if I asked you to marry me.
How right of reply differs from right to reply by Jose Carillo
http://josecarilloforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=6819.0
So which construction is correct, the sentence you quoted from the Inquirer or as
you have reconstructed it in the two versions above?

I think the sentence as published in the Inquirer is grammatically correct, whether

or not it was corrected by the Inquirer section editor before publication: I
remember you telling me that youll say yes in a heartbeat if I were to ask you to
marry me. This sentence is a special case of the normal sequence-of-tenses rule
for reported speech in the first conditional or real possibility thats being used in
tandem with a subjunctive clause.

Remember now that depending on the speakers predisposition or intent, the

operative verb in utterances can take any tense. In that particular sentence,
however, we have the special case of a first-person speaker I recalling (in the
present tense) second-person you as telling him (thats in the present progressive
tense) that she will say yes in a heartbeat (thats a categorical confirmation as
opposed to simple futurity) if he (the first-person speaker I) were to ask her to
marry him (this use of were isnt in the past tense but in the subjunctive form).
All of the past actions described in the sentence are therefore being told as if they
are happening at the present time, so it makes grammatical and semantic sense for
the verbs involvedexcept for the subjunctive wereto take the present tense.
(For a comprehensive and very interesting discussion of this particular form of the
subjunctive, click this link to Using the Subjunctive Mood in English.)
How right of reply differs from right to reply by Jose Carillo
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On the other hand, when an utterance is in the form of reported speech and the
reporting verb is in the past tense, the normal sequence-of-tenses rule provides
that the operative verb of the utterance should take one step back from the present
into the past, such that the present becomes past, the past usually stays in the
past, the present perfect becomes past perfect, and the future becomes future
conditional. (Click this link for my posting in the Forum discussing the normal
sequence-of-tenses rule in English grammar.) If the reporting verb is in the past
tense remembered, for instance, that sentence would take this form using youd
say: I remembered that you told me that youd say yes in a heartbeat if I were to
ask you to marry me.

Following the normal sequence-of-tenses rule, your first suggested reconstruction

of the sentence in question, I remember you telling me that youd say yes in a
heartbeat if I were to ask you to marry me, would, strictly speaking, be incorrect in
using youd say (the contracted form of you would say) since the reporting verb
is the present-tense verb remember. It would be grammatically correct to use
youd say if the reporting verb were the past-tense told, as in this sentence:
You told me that youd say yes in a heartbeat if I were to ask you to marry me.

As to your second suggested reconstruction of the sentence in question, I

remember you telling me that youd say yes in a heartbeat if I asked you to marry
me, it is, strictly speaking, grammatically incorrect to use the simple past-tense I
asked you for the conditional clause of the sentence. As in the case of your first
suggested reconstruction, that sentence would be correct if the reporting verb were
the past-tense told and if the verb in the conditional clause were in the form if Id
ask you, as in this sentence: You told me that youd say yes in a heartbeat if Id
ask you to marry me.

Im aware that this is a rather long and complicated as well as almost abstruse
explanation for why that sentence construction from that essay in the Inquirer is
correct, but I was constrained to come up with it to adequately answer your tough
question regarding the matter. I hope youll find the explanation helpful in
understanding the special usage involved in that sentence. (2013)