so on, similar to Canadian English, rather than American first grade, second grade, etc. Tautologies like redundancy and pleonasm are common despite the emphasis on avoiding them, stressing brevity and simplicity in making sentences; they are common to many speakers, especially among the older generations. The possible explanation is that the English language teachers who came to the Philippines were taught old-fashioned grammar, thus they spread that style to the students they served. Examples are "At this point in time" and ".. will be the one ..." (or "... will be the one who will ...") instead of "now" and "... will ..." respectively - e.g., "I will be the one who will go ...", rather than "I will go ...". Collective nouns are generally singular in construction, e.g., my family is doing well as opposed to my family are doing well or the group was walking as opposed to the group were walking. This is also the case in American English. The past tense and past participles of the verbs learn, spell and smell are often regular (learned, spelled, smelled) in Philippine English. These are also the case in American English. River follows the name of the river in question, e.g., Pasig River, rather than the British convention of coming before the name, e.g., River Thames. This is also the case in North American English. While prepositions before days may be omitted in American English, e.g., She resigned Thursday, they are retained in Philippine English: She resigned on Thursday. This is shared with British English. However, those prepositions are usually omitted in journalistic practice. The institutional nouns hospital and university sometimes do not take the definite article, e.g. He's in hospital and She's at university, while sometimes they do, e.g. He's in the hospital and She's at the university. On the weekend is used in favor of the British at the weekend which is not encountered in Philippine English. Ranges of dates use to, e.g., Monday to Friday, rather than Monday through Friday. This is shared with British English and is in contrast to American English. When speaking or writing out numbers, and is not inserted before the tens, i.e., five hundred sixty-nine rather than five hundred and sixty-nine. This is in contrast to British English. Additionally, the insertion of and is also common in American English. The preposition to in write to (e.g. I'll write to you [something])