“Stupidity is invincible”
By Rigoberto D. Tiglao, Philippine Daily Inquirer

November 24, 2010—Not too widely known is the fact that the Greek language is not only a precise, nuanced language, but it has a treasury of aphorisms. The beauty of these adages is that one would have to do some thinking to understand them. But when understanding dawns, one realizes how rich the proverb is.

Think of President Aquino’s very first order as head of government, Memorandum Circular No. 1, which would have paralyzed government. It was rescinded, as his officials put it, just “to fine-tune” it. Think of Dinky Soliman boasting that yes, the President was in command during the hostage crisis in August because he had a command post—at the Emerald Garden restaurant. Think of Mr. Aquino antagonizing the United States by saying that its travel advisories warning of terrorist attacks in the country are merely pressure connected to the Visiting Forces Agreement. Think of the incompetent tourism secretary, Alberto Lim, arrogantly saying that there wasn’t any plagiarism in the design of the slogan he wanted since Poland doesn’t have a copyright on it.

I can’t help thinking of the Greek saying, “Stupidity is invincible.”

It is the kind of invincibility a motorcyclist refusing to wear a helmet feels, or the Magdalo coup plotters thought they had when they occupied two hotels inside the financial district, inanely and arrogantly believing their action would trigger another People Power revolt. The arrogance displayed by many administration officials as they commit boo-boo after boo-boo illustrates the insight in that adage.

I hope that they will instead follow Deng Xiao Ping’s adage that guided China’s economic boom: “I don’t care if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”

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Unoriginal
By Alex Magno, The Philippine Star 

November 20, 2010—The Department of Tourism (DOT) says it will conduct public consultations regarding its controversial campaign logo. That is quite unnecessary.

The world of social media has spoken. The ad has been trashed. It is not only uninspiring; it is also unoriginal.

Trust the world of social media to uncover what might have been thought to be undiscoverable. The new DOT logo has been found to be “plagiarized” — it uses the same font and basically the same colors as Poland’s tourism campaign logo.

Tourism Secretary Bertie Lim tries to play down the obvious unoriginality by saying the Pilipinas Kay Ganda logo has more colors. Yes, just one more color. Okay, there is a tarsier there to help clutter that logo along with the dictionary entry.

That is such a lame defense. He could have gone on the offensive by proclaiming that the controversial logo, by being as cluttered as a jeepney’s hood, is truly Filipino.

The font, however, is still Poland’s. With all the visual art talent we have around, couldn’t the DOT have found someone to render the logo manually?

Aren’t we the design and advertising powerhouse of the region? We are now told Filipinos designed and executed the “Malaysia Truly Asia” campaign. That is a classic in messaging.

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Gagged by language
By Lakambini A. Sitoy, The Manila Times

November 4, 2010—Learning a new language is a humbling experience, to say the least. It is as if someone had swung a plank first at one shin, then the other, bound your arms behind your back, thrown sand in your eyes, stuffed a rag in your mouth. Blinded, muzzled, crippled, you must progress nonetheless. For someone who has spent a lifetime working with words, indeed never been at a loss for them, it is psychologically disabling. In this position, I found myself as dependent on my language teacher as if I had been a child. This man, only a year older than myself, a smoker and a rabid football fan, someone so like my male friends back in the old life, but a type of Dane to which I didn’t have social access . . . I hung onto his every word. He was a good person: he knew when a student was ready to fold, and no one ever shed tears of humiliation in his class. But he employed a strategy of needling students to get them to talk, setting up opposition to our every word. For we too-readily admitted defeat, clinging to the security of silence as timid kids will hang on to a swimming pool gutter.

Yet, under interrogation, to suddenly find the words to answer back . . . ! This was exhilarating, like striking out on our own into cold green water, the teacher taking step after step back, arms extended, encouraging us to go farther, ready to catch us if we drowned.

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Technology and the dictionary
By Lynn Walker, TimesRecordNews.com

November 20, 2010—Amazing the effect rapidly changing technology is having on all facets of our lives — including the English language.

The New Oxford American Dictionary has picked “refudiate” as its new “word of the year.”

“Refudiate” is a word ex-Alaska governor Sarah Palin used in a tweet last summer when the ground zero mosque was a hot topic in the news. “Refudiate” seems to be a word Palin concocted which is somewhere between “repudiate” and “refute.” Those two words have kinda sorta the same meaning — to reject.

In my book, “refudiate” goes into the same category as “irregardless,” a word that isn’t really a word but is used by many people to convey the same meaning as a real word that sounds similar. In the case of “regardless,” it means without regard. When someone changes it to “irregardless,” it implies the opposite of without regard — which is just the opposite of what the user means.

In second place in the dictionary’s word of the year competition is “bankster,” a “member of the banking industry perceived as a predator that grows rich at the expense of those suffering in a crumbling economy.”

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Perhaps media can help
By: Connie M. Foster, INFORUM

November 21, 2010—Thank you, thank you, thank you, Forum columnist Jane Ahlin (column, Nov. 14)!

Some days I feel as if I am teaching a foreign language – proper English. I understand why some of my students have difficulties. One problem with the English language and knowing what word or letter choice should be used may be that every rule has at least one exception (except for that one rule). Another problem is that too many people use improper grammar, thereby making the improper word choices sound correct. If only I could get some help. Perhaps I could enlist the media.

As an English teacher, I daily face the problems Ahlin addressed in last Sunday’s Forum. Some of my students do understand the difference between informal, conversational English and standard, formal English. Others, however, struggle. We learn through exposure. The grammatical faux pas she listed could be used as a guideline for anyone in media. Hearing expressions used correctly would set a pattern for listeners/readers.

One comment often given to me is, “It doesn’t sound right. What you said sounds stupid.” This comment is used often when reviewing the predicate nominative (It is I/she/he/we/they who ...) or the past and past participle uses of lie (mentioning that your mom lay down for a nap or that you have lain down). Hearing words used correctly would help my students so much.

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Our surrender of the English language
By Charles Gladle, Gates-Chili Post

Remember the day? I can’t recall the month. I don’t even know the year.

All I know is that we surrendered. There was not one shot fired and I don’t think anyone was even wounded. All I know is one day I woke up and there it was, Spanish, all over the place.

I heard it day and night. It was spoken in the stores, on the streets, everywhere. I heard Spanish on the radio, on the television and on my phone, and it was on every printed package from apples to Zantac.

It was all legal and proper with the assistance of our brilliant elected political representatives, our courts, and America’s sickening mass media, along with all the liberal-run organizations, groups, agencies and unions from Washington on down to Main Street USA.

The invasion was so efficient, the victory so quick, that I didn’t see it coming. For more than 225 years, we English-speaking citizens saw millions of legal aliens join us, learn our language and become true citizens of our democracy. By learning English we could all communicate, sing, pray, express love, happiness, sadness and air our differences in one common, sensible language.

Suddenly we were all confused, angry and dumfounded by this quick victory and we did nothing to stop it. The lawyers and the politicos realized that they could gain favor with the soon-to-be-Spanish-speaking voters. We were sold out by a corrupt consortium of political opportunists and judges who interpret our Constitution to their ends so as to re-engineer our society to their liking.

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Brouwer sandwiched by slump
By Ian Walker, Vancouver Sun
 
November 20, 2010—There are some words in the English language that are just fun to say out loud. “Twizzler” and “jujube” always seem to evoke a smile while “boondoggle” and “gobbledygook” are also good for a laugh.

Other words are more onomatopoeic in nature. They sound very much like their meaning.

Take “soggy,” for instance. It conjures up an image of wet socks or bread that was taken out of the oven too soon. Speaking of which, a “soggy” anything is probably the last thing you’d ever want to see on a menu—never mind, dare order. Unless, you’re a power forward for the Chicago Blackhawks and the Troy Brouwer Soggy Meatball Sandwich at 50/Fifty in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village is named in your honour.

“I always ask for extra sauce, it’s good sauce and you never want a dry meatball sandwich, so that’s where that came from,” said Brouwer, in the lead-up to tonight’s game between the defending Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks and the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena. “I’ll admit it does sound a bit weird.”

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Importance of vowels
By Keith W. Wright, TheStar.my.com

November 21, 2010—In response to the many requests from teachers for more ideas to address spelling problems, this week we will further consider the importance of the role vowels play in words. Additionally, the opportunity to obtain a copy of The Spelling Guide has also been extended.

Long vowels – that is, vowels that say their name – are valuable clues to correct spelling and to accurate pronunciation. When one hears a “long vowel” in a word, one knows immediately that the word is spelt usually in one of four ways.

While there are a few exceptions — mainly in relation to words that have been borrowed from other languages — when a word contains a vowel that says its own name when it is pronounced, there are four questions that can be asked about how the word is spelt.

Question one: If a vowel in a word is pronounced as a “long” sound, is that word spelt with a final ‘e’ that is usually silent?

Consider these words: cake, same, bike, rice, coke, home, tube.

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My beloved rebel
By Lim Bee Hoon, TheStar.com.my

November 14, 2010—I doted on my son and that became a bone of contention between me and my daughter, who is three years younger than him. When my son was young, I would read to him every night without fail.

As an English language teacher, I would make sure he digested whatever I had to impart to him. In short, I was a tyrannical mother and educator.

I left my girl with the babysitter and only took her home when she was a toddler, my excuse being that I had no time for her as I had to ferry my boy for music lessons and do home tuition with him daily after he turned three.

The babysitter’s house was just a short distance away and I would drop in occasionally, thus I had no qualms about neglecting my daughter at all. At that point, my son mattered most to me.

Fortunately for me, my daughter turned out to be good in writing and expressing herself through words. Initially, I did not notice her talent.

But when I came across an article she’d written for her school magazine, I posed the same question her class teacher had asked of her: “Did you write it yourself?”

My girl responded: “Of course, I did it myself. Who the hell do you think wrote it?” That shut me up for a couple of days.

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Where English opens doors to jobs
By Sunder Ramachandran

During a recent trip to Cambodia, I was asked to interact with a privately commissioned class, by a client training prospective employees in English language skills.

On arriving there, I discovered a dimly lit street in Phnom Penh’s Prampi Makara district where several young students were crammed into a classroom, their eyes glued to a man speaking into a microphone.

“In such a hard situation we will have to find a way,” said Nget Laren over and over again to his attentive listeners, repeating the sentence like an incantation. “In such a hard situation we will have to find a way. In such a hard situation we will have to find a way.” With their eyes glued on Laren, the students repeated his phrase.

This may sound like a religious sermon but those in the room were actually there for one simple reason: to improve their English language skills. Laren was teaching English to young Cambodians from a wide range of city universities — and a smattering of high-schoolers, jobless graduates and even Buddhist monks — who from morning until night eagerly swarm in, grab a desk and ready themselves for an hour of informal language session. There are about 20 small rooms in this street that double up as miniature language schools every evening.

Some of these classes are commissioned by private organisations that want to hire young Cambodians but that, however, find gaps in the English language proficiency of the population.

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Speaking in tongues in our courts
By Atty. Martin Labuschagne, TimesLive.co.za

November 21, 2010—A specific aspect of our legal system that has become problematic is the official language of the courts. In theory, we have multilingualism, but in many courts the de facto language is English. This is unsatisfactory.

Let me explain what I mean.

I once had a peculiar experience in a magistrate’s court. My matter was on the roll and I sat in court waiting for it to be called while other matters were attended to.

In court was a Sepedi-speaking prosecutor, magistrate, accused and legal representative of the accused. Strangely, the proceedings were conducted in English, although Sepedi is an official language of South Africa.

The proceedings were frustratingly slow, because everything had to be translated for the accused. Speaking in their vernacular would have made more sense.

Another absurdity is the way that language rights are sometimes manipulated to frustrate another party.

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