As a newspaper editor I come across all sorts of articles that mangle the English language to the point of unintelligibility. This is especially true in this political season when politicians’ rah-rah people try to put their names out to the public, and they often send press releases that heap praise on their bosses at the expense of grammar and, well, the truth. Words like “indefatigable,” “outstanding,” and even, “handsome” are employed to describe candidates who would normally be anything but, and the PR people do not seem to care that the press releases they churn out have little semblance to the truth. There’s nothing more I’d like to do than email these agents and quote Voltaire to them: “The adjective is the enemy of the noun.” Or Mark Twain: “When you catch an adjective, kill it.”
I am, however, the last person to say that mastery of the English language is a gauge of one’s intelligence. I have known many great people who speak mainly Tagalog and who would be laughed out of a room if they attempted to speak in English. But their greatness is not diminished by that; if anything, they are respected in their respective fields because they refuse to let language be a barrier in their pursuit of their dreams. One such person I worked for many years ago would ask me to translate his speeches for him, and he read them aloud during his public appearances.
And it’s not as if the English language has not borrowed from Filipino. Most of us know that “boondocks” comes from the Tagalog “bundok,” although the English meaning of “rough, remote, or isolated country” is a bit of an extrapolation from the original “mountain” (and is actually closer to the Visayan term “bukid” which does in fact carry with it the meaning of being remote and isolated). Wikipedia lists a few other English words that are of Tagalog origin:
abaca – a species of banana native to the Philippines. The plant is of major economical importance, being harvested for its fibre, called Manila hemp.
capiz – decoration material, made of mother-of-pearl shells that have the same name.
cogon – type of grass, used for thatching, from the Tagalog word kugon.
cooties – from the common Austronesian and Tagalog kuto which literally means “head lice.”
manila (hemp) – a type of fiber obtained from the leaves of the abacá (Musa textilis), a relative of the banana.
ylang-ylang – type of flower known for its fragrance.
yo-yo – the toy
But whether we like it or not, it is us Pinoys who have borrowed more words from the Americans, and often it is in the way we misuse the language that we stand out. Like I said, I am the last person to insist that we fall in line with the Americans, but many times I cringe at how we mangle their language. An example is the phrase I just used in the previous sentence, “fall in line,” which does not mean to stand in line or to queue up as we use it but “to conform with others.” Here are some more common mistakes:
Hardly — The word means “scarcely” or even “no” or “not,” but is often mistake for “hard,” as in, “The province was hardly hit by the typhoon.”
Barking at the wrong tree — Why would a dog bark at a tree? The correct phrase is “barking up the wrong tree” and means to pursue a mistaken or misguided line of thought or course of action.
His husband? — This one’s understandable. Philippine languages do not have specific words that refer to gender; the word for husband and wife, for example, is “asawa,” and brother and sister is “kapatid.” But we should be careful to use the right pronoun for the correct noun.
Asking for an apology — This is used so frequently that I grate at it, and it even has a Tagalog and Visayan counterpart that carries the same mistake. What one asks for is forgiveness, not an apology; if you ask for an apology, you’re the one who’s aggrieved.
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merry Christmas Sir Jon! hello to mam Dadai and kids too! ka relate kaau ko kay utro pud ko nga mahina sa English. i just remembered what carlos told me na “hwag pilitin kung hindi kaya. importante naiintindihan ka ng kausap mo.”
merry christmas majal! yes, tama si carlos, ultimately what matters is that we communicate