Just what kind of "spotlight" is it?

More on the Beijing Games, at the 29th Olympiad:

"Games put China under** spotlight" read a recent Los Angeles Times Headline.

Why use the preposition "under"** instead of "in"?* What may be the difference? What was the headline editor thinking? What did the editor mean to suggest? How could prepositions be so important?

A simple definition: "A preposition indicates a relation between things mentioned in a sentence." (Wikipedia). The relationship is either one of modifying or complementing (adding to the meaning of other words). The ways prepositions modify and complement other words are many. They serve as a workhouse of those languages which contain them, and English is the more powerful for its possession of such a worthy linguistic laborer.

Below are listed a few of the functions of prepositions. Outlined in blue are the functions applying to the preposition "under" in the Los Angeles Times headline:

• *spatial relations: modifying by location (inclusion, exclusion, proximity), direction (origin, path, endpoint)
• temporal relations
• comparison: equality, opposition, price, rate
• content: source, material, subject matter
• **instrument, manner: modifying by demonstrating how an action is accomplished: ("beneath" the spotlight, "under the authority" of the "light")
  
• cause, purpose, agent: modifying by demonstrating cause and effect, agency, or purpose: ("The Olympic Games act as an "agent" of "purpose" to "expose" some "truth" about China other than that of sponsoring the 29th Olympiad in the modern era).
  

Thus, the "Games" use a "spotlight" which may be pointed at China or shined upon China; Or, China may be put in the spotlight; however, it is another matter to say that China has been put under the spotlight.

All of the above mentioned prepositions serve the spatial function of showing "direction, path, or endpoint," but more importantly, the preposition "under" makes the Games and the "spotlight" an instrument of political analysis. The preposition shows a manner in which the games are operating. It's about more than just the Games.

Perhaps more Games should be put under the spotlight. "The Montreal Games in 1976 lost more than $1 billion generat(ing) a profit of (merely) $250 million." Guess who paid the bill? The people of Montreal paid it as many private investors profited. (Sports Business News, Blogger). By contrast, "...it was Peter Ueberroth’s (organizer of the Los Angeles Games) vision that saved the Olympic Games (emphasis mine) and turned the debt ridden Games into a money making machine." (Sports Business News). One may ask: Should "money making machine" fall under the Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius (Swifter, Higher, Stronger)?

The point is, pay attention to headlines, pay attention to prepositions. A brief but careful analysis of them may provide a means of better understanding the article or statement which follows.

Should the Games in China merely operate in the spotlight, or under the spotlight as well?
You decide. After all, you are a citizen of the world and you now understand the power and reach of prepositions.

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Pictures may speak volumes

Many words may be spoken about the elaborate opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. Outperforming the opening of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, for example. That's saying something since "Hollywood" helped produce that ceremony. And we thought communists were supposed to be boring.


Not when they run the third largest economy in the world and currently produce more billionaires than the other economic juggernauts.

Be that as it may, like many onlookers, I was moved by the guileless beauty of the Chinese children, the sound and light issuing from the stadium, and the athletes parading before the crowd. An element of hopefulness briefly emerged from the deep well of cynical, political reality. Then, in the final phase of the pageant a group of stern-looking, goose-stepping Chinese soldiers porting the Olympic flag and raising it cleared the brain of its sentiment.

I reflected that in the ancient games in Olympia, Greece all militant actions of war were put off. All ornaments and military trappings were set aside. Here we have the Chinese military goose-stepping with the flag, its five rings representing the five major regions of the globe firmly in their grasp.

Then again, we know that Chinese soldiers have been used for purposes other than military engagement before, as when they were ordered to don Buddhist robes in order to impersonate Tibetan monks in a movie. Is the word propaganda out of order? Note the red robes in the soldiers' arms in the photograph below.








But was this really so contradictory a conclusion to the opening ceremony? After all, Baron Pierre de Coubertin who conceived and promoted the revival of the modern Olympics at the beginning of the last century "...was convinced that the sports-centered English public school system of the late 19th century was the rock upon which the vast and majestic British empire rested."

On with the games.

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Needless repetition of verb phrases: Save your energy, life is short

Recently, a friend described a meal he had savored at a good local restaurant. He said to me:

"I would have wanted to have eaten every course."

He might have said more plainly and economically:

"I would have wanted to eat every course."

The problem is my friend's sequencing of tenses is overworked where it need not be. The verb phrase "would have wanted" is in the potential mood expressing a wish, something probable or possible. (John B. Opdycke, Harper's English Grammar). "...would have wanted" is the principal verb phrase and "tells the whole story." No necessity to repeat verb structures. The wish has been expressed, therefore, no need to repeat with "to have eaten," the perfect infinitive which basically expresses the same thing in terms of time frame.

If my friend had gotten his wish, yes, he "would have eaten." We know already the expression is in the potential. Just use the simple infinitive phrase, not the perfect infinitive.

If my friend had been expressing his wish in the nineteenth century, even into the early twentieth, he might have said something like: "...that I should eat more if I were capable." If this were the case, he would have been using the imperfect subjunctive (subjunctive mood), a verb structure not uncommon in those days.

But we are living in the early twenty-first century, and can still express ourselves economically with the added benefit of also being grammatically correct (in this case more aesthetically pleasing)* by using the perfect infinitive in the sequential phrase that follows the principal phrase. We understand the wish, we know the time frame, no need to repeat the time frame.

*I share a philosophy of grammar similar to that of Eric Partridge: Better to be moderate with respect to rules unless (emphasis mine) either logical or aesthetic sense be disturbed.

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