Messages

1

Badly Written, Badly Spoken / Re: Can anyone translate this for me?

« on: November 26, 2009, 06:29:11 PM »

I like Maxsims's revision. But I agree with your observation, Sir Joe, that "in the process...he had thrown away the baby with the bathwater."

As for your revision, Sir Joe, it's much more agreeable. Thanks.

FYI: I read the article three times because, well, I just can't figure out what the author means. 

2

Badly Written, Badly Spoken / Can anyone translate this for me?

« on: November 26, 2009, 12:06:43 PM »

Encountered this passage when I was doing my professional readings:

"Behavior coaching refers to the individualized intervention designed for the adolescent with special needs (ASN) to enable him/her to acquire psychosocial-educational skills and competencies consistent with the normalization perspective."

Now, can anyone tell me what that passage means in plain and simple English?

3

Lounge / Vote for me in the 2009 Philippine Blog Awards: Flippish Viewer's Choice Award

« on: October 08, 2009, 10:50:37 AM »

Hello friends!

As one of the finalists of the Best Personal Blog category in the 2009 Philippine Blog Awards, I am also part of the Flippish Viewers' Choice Award!

Now the viewers get to decide on who wins, by voting for their favorite personal blog. On top of that, they also get a chance to win a Nokia 2330 classic if the blog of their choice gets the most hits!

The winners of the Flippish Viewer's Choice Award and the Nokia phone will be announced during the live webcast of the Philippine Blog Awards on October 9, 2009, 6pm only on Flippish.com.

If you love me, then vote for me.

To vote, go to http://www.flippish.com/nokia-voting-page/ , choose my blog The Free Lancer, supply the needed information, then send your vote away.

Thanks,

Arvin Ortiz

4

Use and Misuse / Re: "Getting the best cure possible for bad English usage"

« on: October 08, 2009, 10:43:47 AM »

Forum member Arvin Ortiz posted in his blog yesterday an incisive, charming review of my second English-usage book, The 10 Most Annoying English Grammar Errors. It starts as follows:

"If you approach a snake-oil vendor, he will tell you, without a moment’s hesitation, that something’s wrong with you, and that you better take his medicine. A medical doctor, by contrast, after performing a battery of tests, not only will tell what ails you, but also explains what causes your ailment. Then he will recommend the best cure possible..."

Check out the full book review by clicking this link to his blog, The Free Lancer.

Thanks a million, Arvin!

My pleasure, Sir Joe.

5

Your Thoughts Exactly / Re: We only need to polish our English to a good shine

« on: October 01, 2009, 09:25:56 AM »

You said in your posting, tonybau:

“Many from our neighboring ASEAN countries could hardly speak English and yet, economically, they have surpassed us. Koreans realize this and they send their students over to the Philippines hoping to learn the language, or the kind of English that is being taught over here. Korea’s economy is way beyond ours. The same is true with Japan. What this seems to tell us is that good English is not necessary for success or economic upliftment. As long as one can communicate what he or she intends to and is understood, correct English or not, then the job is done. Why worry about English?

“How much of a problem or a headache has this become, or should we even consider this a problem? Will our success as a country depend on how we speak English?”

Tonybau, your posting reminded me of a letter I received way back in 2003 from a US Air Force officer of Filipino ancestry who chided me for expressing concern about Filipinos not being able to write better English.

“Why?” he asked from the United States. “The Philippines has its own unique language in Tagalog. It must be studied and learned. Filipinos should be proud and be proficient in it… Take a look at the Japanese or the Germans. Their economies are thriving not because of English, but because of their exceptional personal discipline and their relentless focus on technological innovation…”

Since I find strong parallelism between your thoughts and his, I would like to just quote here what I told him over seven years ago regarding our need to improve our English:

“Let me sketch the big picture. Nearly 50 years of American colonization had deeply Anglicized the way we Filipinos think and run our lives—the way we name ourselves and our institutions, the way we consume, the way we educate ourselves, the way we inform and entertain ourselves, the way we do business, and the way we muddle through with our politics. English is in our soul, in our tongue, in our stomachs, in our scent, in our clothes, in our shoes, in our printed word, in our airwaves and bandwidths, in the very air we inhale and exhale. We can argue to death that this may not be exactly a good thing, but that is precisely what we have become—Asian by geography, skin, and temperament but decidedly American by taste, inclination, and aspiration.

“If it were possible right now to successfully strip our Filipino-ness of its American veneer and its English trappings so we can build a new nation anchored on Tagalog, I would be among the first to enlist for the effort. But you and I know that this will be madness. We have gone too far in the day to entertain that simplistic notion. It will require reprogramming our minds or lobotomizing our brains, and disowning our very own culture—the moral and physical equivalent of national suicide.

“To me, language is just a tool, and I really couldn’t care less if we replaced English with Tagalog, so long as we could express ourselves clearly and conduct our day-to-day business effectively. But of what good would that be? In the global order of things, we are fortunate to be already 100 years ahead in the quest for the one attribute that many other nations are now breaking their necks to have: English proficiency. English has become today’s global language, one that over 7,000,000 of our countrymen are already using to earn a living abroad. Why sacrifice this one competitive advantage in the name of romance and nationalism?

“And now for the small picture. Our business sector demands good English from those who want to join the white-collar workforce. But you and I know that thousands upon thousands of our college graduates can’t even write a good English sentence, much less a credible job application letter. Because of that, they will never get the jobs they had trained for; they will not even make it to the shortlist of qualified applicants. That’s a lot of money down the drain educating them, and a terrible and monumental waste of our country’s human resources. Yet all we have to do to correct the situation is to think wiser and equip Filipinos with the basic tool that our own society and the world demand of them.

“That tool is the English language—something we already have and need only polish to a good shine.”

Sir Joe, I'll re-post this in my blog: http://arvinantoniospeaks.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/the-case-for-english-proficiency/

6

My Media English Watch / Re: When a modifier squints, the dead could die again and again

« on: September 19, 2009, 04:44:43 PM »

In the story, I think both Umali and Lapuz died, and that the "he" in the sentence "He was rushed...but died at 6:45 a.m.” referred to Umali who was first shot by Lapuz, not Lapuz who died on the spot.

7

Education and Teaching / Re: Avoiding Wikipedia

« on: September 04, 2009, 06:16:11 PM »

I'm sorry, Sir Joe, but neither is the PDF version nor the JPG image of the book is available.

8

Education and Teaching / Avoiding Wikipedia

« on: September 01, 2009, 05:11:11 PM »

Some professors have expressed their grave concerns over the students’ use of Wikipedia as their source in research papers, theses, etc. They dismissed it as unreliable. They suggest instead that students use credible sources like books, journals, and trustworthy electronic sources.

But what if the book one is using cited Wikipedia as its source?

A case in point is the book we once used for our subject Educ M (The Teaching Profession). The book is authored by Purita P. Bilbao, Brenda B. Corpuz, Avelina T. Lagas and Gloria G. Salandanan, all of whom are Ed.D. and Ph.D. holders.

A passage in the book reads: "After you have gotten an idea on the philosophy/ies you lean [sic] let us know more about each of them. The following notes were lifted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_education."

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Your Thoughts Exactly / Re: Is "The Moonlighter’s Wife’s Lament" a true story?

« on: August 17, 2009, 09:48:10 AM »

Hmm...interesting story. Might this be based on a true story of some sort?

May we hear from Arvin Ortiz about this?

Actually it is. In Davao City, many people have been killed without the benefit of the law. We call it extrajudicial killings. The culprit? Reports after reports point to the bonnet-less, leather jacket clad, motorcycle riding men, as the ones responsible for all of this. This ghostly group is called the Davao Death Squad (DDS).

According to a report recently released by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, some of the members of the DDS are policemen themselves. What is more deplorable, however, is that death squad members fall victim to the killings. They are killed, the report said, "when they make a mistake and target a wrong person, fail to carry out an operation, or when they get to know too much."

If you want to know more about the situation, visit http://killthesilencenow.blogspot.com/

I'm sorry if I speak ill of Davao City, especially today when it is celebrating the Kadayawan Festival. 

10

Your Thoughts Exactly / Rising above ourselves

« on: August 06, 2009, 02:33:01 PM »

There will come a time in our lives that we have to make a big decision—a decision whose consequences we are uncertain of. It is not easy to make such a decision, so we’ve got to really admire those who have mustered a mammoth of courage and made that decision.

History is strewn with great men and women who bravely made a big decision even if that meant putting their lives and other people’s lives at grave risk. On a wintry day in December 1776, George Washington decided to cross the Delaware River. The supplies and provisions of Washington’s Continental Army were fast running out. The soldiers were hungry and destitute. Some of them were sick; others were dying. And many more would die, including their fight for independence, unless they would cross the Delaware River into the garrison of the Hessians where stores of food, clothing, blankets, and munitions, ran aplenty. On Christmas Day, Washington and his men embarked on a bold move that would, historians say, alter the course of the revolution the Americans waged against the British Empire. They valiantly crossed the river, swiftly defeated their enemies, and successfully resuscitated the revolution.

Corazon Aquino, “Cory” to many, made hers when her husband, the former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., was killed. The feisty senator was among those who were imprisoned when former president Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law. Ninoy spent many years in prison, but was soon allowed by Marcos to go abroad for a heart operation. There, the Aquinos experienced a glint of peace. But Ninoy was a man who always wanted to be on the battlefields. Though he lived comfortably abroad, away from the claws of the dictatorship, he decided to come home. And he came home, only to be killed.

With his death, Ninoy left not only a bereaved family; he left an unfinished battle as well. That battle was to take the power away from the hands of Marcos, the power Marcos excessively bathed himself with. That battle was to bring back to people what was rightfully theirs: freedom.

There were more able and more willing men who could have continued that battle. There was, for example, Jose Diokno, or Lorenzo Tañada, or Jovito Salonga, or Salvador Laurel—all of whom were brilliant and adept of the inner workings of politics. None of them, however, could be considered as a unifying figure.

And so it came to pass that the task fell on the shoulders of Cory, she who was reluctant to accept the enormousness of the task, who knew next to nothing about being a president.

“What on earth do I know about being president?” Cory once said.

Yet the people launched a signature campaign for Cory’s presidency, convinced as they were that it was only she who could take her husband’s post. The movement, called Cory Aquino for President Movement (CAPM), was headed by Joaquin “Chino” Roces, then publisher of the post-war “Manila Times.” Chino relentlessly worked; he was frequently seen in the streets pushing a grocery cart with piles and piles of papers. And yet Cory remained reluctant to carry on the fight her husband left. Sometime in 1985, Chino recalled, Cory phoned him and said, “Chino, tama na ‘yang kalokohan ninyo!”

But Chino continued with his kalokohan and gathered more than a million of signatures. After the million of signatures were gathered; after Cory witnessed the outpouring of support in Davao City and elsewhere in the country; and after Marcos called a snap election—after all that, Cory finally obliged.

And the rest, they say, is history.

Cory could have led a comfortable life abroad. She could have ignored altogether the idea of assuming his husband’s fight, making it as though it were her own. She could have left the battle to others who were more willing and more experienced and more able than a plain housewife like her. She could have devoted her time to taking care of her fledgling family. But she did not. Although the decision was not that swift, she accepted her fate like Mary who, when Angel Gabriel appeared before her and told her to bear the Son of God, willingly submitted to the will of God.

If there’s one thing that Cory has taught us, it is that we have to rise above our petty concerns, above our predicaments, and indeed above ourselves. This lesson was imparted to us a long time ago by our founding parents. Cory is merely re-echoing, by example, what Emilio Jacinto, the Brains of Katipunan, wrote as the first of the thirteen teachings in “Kartilla,” the primer of the Katipunan: “Life which is not consecrated to a lofty and sacred cause is like a tree without a shadow, if not a poisonous weed.”

Cory consecrated her life to “a lofty and sacred cause”—a cause bigger and better than herself alone. And we must keep on fighting for that cause, so that Cory and those who have come before her shall not have died in vain.

11

Your Thoughts Exactly / The Moonlighter’s Wife’s Lament (A Short Story)

« on: August 04, 2009, 01:48:54 PM »

If you’d look at my face, you’d easily notice the dark circles around my eyes. That’s because I used to spend several sleepless nights waiting for my husband to come. No, he didn’t go abroad. He didn’t leave me for another woman either.

My husband was actually a police. He’s PO1 Ronaldo Cabrera, Jr. of the Regional Intelligence Unit, Police Regional Office 11. I asked him why, of all the professions in the world, he chose to be a police—a far more dangerous profession than, say, teaching. Apart from the fact that it was his childhood dream, he said he also wanted to make the city safer, more peaceful, and more orderly. You’re too idealistic, I told him.

My husband’s handsome. Oh, do you know back when we were in college, he had so many admirers? In fact, I was surprised that he courted me. Of course, I didn’t say yes to him right then and there when he asked me if I love him. But I was tempted to say yes because I was also afraid that he might be disappointed and would turn his attention to other woman more beautiful than me.

In his early years of service, he used to come home early. But when he took another job, he started coming home late. Usually around one o’clock in the morning. He was very vocal to me what his other job was.

“Isn’t it illegal?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “We’re not deviating from our sworn duty: To serve and to protect. We’re just plucking out the thorn on the side of society, the scum.”

“Will you be paid?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t have accepted this if they wouldn’t pay me.”

“Did they tell you how much?”

“My boss said the pay normally ranges from 5,000 to 50,000 or even as high as 100,000. He said it isn’t really fixed. It depends on our target. The more wanted the target is, the bigger the pay of course.”

Every night I waited for him. I just waited. No questions asked. No confrontation. No quarrel. Nothing. I wasn’t worried at first because I knew he could very well take care of himself. Of what good he was awarded the Outstanding Police Award two years ago if he couldn’t take care of himself?

The night before last night, however, was unlike the other nights. No, he didn’t come home drunk. He didn’t smell of a woman’s perfume either. My husband’s got no vice. That’s one thing I’m thankful for. Last night was different because, for the first time, I confronted him. I was just worried because I heard from the news that a police had been killed for reasons yet unknown.

“Did you hear the news this morning?” I asked him. My voice was calm. I wasn’t angry. I just asked him pointblank.

“Yes. Too bad for him. He’s a personal friend actually.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that. Does he have kids? What would happen to his family now?”

“Yes," he said. "Two boys. I heard the mother-in-law’s going to adopt the children. Don’t know what would happen to the wife.”

“When will you quit that other job of yours?” I told him as soon as he put his .45 on top of the table in the living room, and removed his shoes. He cast a sharp look at me, but I remained calm.

“What are you saying?” he asked me, his voice louder than his normal voice.

“Do you need to raise your voice? Can’t you see the kids are already sleeping? I just asked you when will you quit.”

“All right, you want me to answer you? I don’t have a plan of quitting.”

“What? You mean you will forever stay with your boss?”

“Why not? Had I not met him and stayed merely as a police, we wouldn’t be able to send the kids to a good school; we wouldn’t be able to live in this house today.”

“But I’m just worried, Ronaldo, I’m dead worried. What if you would suffer the fate of your police friend? What if one day, we will just find you floating on the river? Where will we go? What would happen to your kids?”

“That won’t happen. My boss told he’s gonna take care of me.”

But it did happen. It was his compare who broke the news to me. They found him lying face down somewhere in Cabantian, where his police friend was also found. His eyes were bloodshot, there were bruises all over his face, and his hands were tied behind his back—proofs that he was tortured before he was killed. Investigators found sixteen gunshot wounds in different parts of his body. The way he was killed was really brutal.

When I asked him who could have done this, he said he didn’t know. But I knew that he knew who, because they have the same boss. In fact, it was he who asked my husband if he was interested to join.

“Tell me, please,” I told him, almost kneeling.

“I’m sorry, comare, but I didn’t really know. All I know is that compare already knew a lot about the group.”

We left the city after we buried my husband. We are now living with my mother. It was hard, especially for my kids. I have my job here. I grew up here. The kids grew up here. Before we left, one human rights group approached me and broached the idea of bringing my husband’s case to the courts of law. They told me not to worry about the expenses. They would shoulder all that. All I have to do is to cooperate with them. I almost accepted the offer, but I declined. Of course I want justice for my husband’s death, but God’s justice, not man’s.

Call me a coward, but I’m just doing what I think is best for me and my kids. I’m not that brave. I don’t want to gamble. I know that if I would carry on this fight, it would be a fight between David and Goliath. True, that in the bible David won. But my life’s no story in the bible, and I certainly am no David. So I leave this fight to others who are braver than me.

12

Your Thoughts Exactly / Like flowers from the rubble

« on: August 04, 2009, 11:17:49 AM »

We never ran out of witty phrases by which we call, or give tribute to, our teachers. We call them the molders of the minds or the movers of civilization. Former President Jose P. Laurel, himself a teacher, once called them “the meek molders of man’s characters.”

But how can the teachers meet so daunting a task with so meager a supply? Indeed, how can they mold the mind of others when their minds, too, need molding? How can they move a civilization when they scramble to persuade their students to follow their instructions? How can they mold someone else’s characters when they are sometimes looked up to with little respect?

I have seen how horrible the situation is in public schools. There, teachers handle four sections of more or less 75 students crammed into a small, oftentimes shabby, and poorly-ventilated classroom. The students don’t have books, and on the rare occasions that they ever got hold of a book, a dilapidated one at that, they have to share it with what—four other students? And for subjecting themselves to what some may consider as self-flagellation, they receive only about 12,000 pesos per month.

Yet what fascinates me is that they are like flowers from the rubble. Amidst the flutters of discouraging things around them, they still manage to keep their groove. Despite the very many odd things that they have to wade through, they still teach. Despite the paucity of books or the low salary, they still teach.

Perhaps the reason why they persist is that they continuously cling on to the romantic idea that in their hands, lie the noble task of molding the minds, of building up characters, of helping a fledgling fly. Some people call it madness. I think it is not.

It is, I believe, a normal response of people who have accepted the challenge of teaching and meekly resigned to the fact that “In teaching,” as Jacques Barzun said, “you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.”

13

Lounge / Even Remoto commits mistakes

« on: June 18, 2009, 04:27:55 PM »

I was surprised when I found out that the passage Ed Maranan sent to Sir Joe, and Sir Jose discussed in his piece--"Grammar imprecisions, semantic near-misses"--came from Danton Remoto's work, "Wings of Desire."

Here's the link to Sir Joe's piece: http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/aug/02/yehey/opinion/20080802opi6.html

And here's the link to Danton Remoto's story: http://oppositeofapathy.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/wings-of-desire/

14

Lounge / 'Strictly speaking'

« on: June 05, 2009, 09:56:30 AM »

Recently added to my mini-library is Strictly Speaking by Edwin Newman, which I bought last night at the Bookshop for P60.

Based on its introduction---the only part I managed to read so far---that a presidential spokesman opted to say he must be given enough time to make an "evaluation and judgment in terms of a response" than simply say "he'll think about it," is a commentary on the state of language. And the state of language is a commentary on the state of society.

"Language," Edwin Newman says, "is in decline." Does it mean society is in decline, too?

Newman says we have become a society when people say "at this point in time" instead of the more concise "now" or "today." Ours is a society where everything done "before" is done "prior to," and everything done "after" is done "subsequent to."

Newman's message, then as now, remains valid. It also hit close to home. "As with fiscal and food challenges," said GMA in her 2008 SONA, "the global energy crunch demands better and more focused resource mobilization, conservation, and management." In the same speech, GMA said, "More advanced corruption practices require a commensurate advances in legislative responses."

I feel that there are far better ways of saying what GMA said. I just can't do it myself. Still, the fact remains. GMA delivered her message without bothering to get her point across. George Orwell in Politics and the English Language launched a scathing remark on how politics corrupts language---and vice versa. He said: "Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

GMA's speech, and indeed most speeches of today's politicians, are no different from the kind of politico-babble Orwell and the many language mavens like Edwin Newman condemned long time ago.

I hope (Newman advised against using "hopefully"), politicians would pause for a moment and ask themselves, "Do I make my point simple and clear?" Or better yet, get a copy of Edwin Newman's Strictly Speaking or Sir Jose Carillo's books. 

15

Badly Written, Badly Spoken / Re: Same place, same eye-popping English variant

« on: June 03, 2009, 11:22:04 AM »

While overhauling the mangled English of that poster I personally sent, I thought my responsibility is to merely fix the poster’s bad English. But I was utterly wrong, thanks to Sir Joe. He pointed out that, “The challenge…is to more than just improve the English of that poster. We have to strip it of the emotionalism, crankiness, and peremptoriness of the writer of the original text. We have to make it sound much more pleasant and reader-friendly—smiling, no less—so that the guests would more willingly accept its message and act on it positively.”

I don’t know if in this second attempt I have satisfactorily met that criterion. Nevertheless, I’m posting my second edition here — one that, I think, combines good English and good communication. Whether it’s enough to clinch the prize Sir Joe promised doesn’t really bother me. After all, in every endeavor — be it learning good English or making a class project — the process is as important as the product. But if it does pass the grade, that's good. (wink, wink)
_____

ISLA BEACH RESORT AND CANTEEN
RULES AND REGULATIONS

Vacation seldom occurs, and when it does, we sure want to enjoy every single moment of it. To ensure that the customers are well taken care of is precisely the goal that Isla Beach Resort aspires to when serving its customers. To help your stay in Isla Beach Resort as hassle-free as possible, please spare a few moments to read the following rules and regulations:   

•   Although the security guards are doing their regular rounds to secure the place, everyone is still expected to watch their own belongings. The Isla Beach Resort will not be held responsible if anything is lost.

•   Per City Ordinance No. 2005-107, the playing of videoke is until 12:00 midnight only. Failure to observe this will result in the revocation of Isla Beach Resort’s license to operate.

•   The Isla Beach Resort asks for a deposit charge for all kinds of beverages from anyone, regardless of whether one is an Isla Beach customer, an Isla Beach employee, an employees’ friend, or an outsider.

•   The deposit charge per bottle is P20.00. An additional P100.00 will be charged for the case, if any. For every deposit, the customer will be given a claim stub that will be presented to the cashier when claiming the deposit.

•   The customer is advised to take good care of the claim stub. Lost or wet claim stub will not be honored.

•   The Isla Beach is a self-service resort. The Isla Beach management therefore advises its customers to make their payments inside.

•   The following are the corkage and other charges:
 
Entrance Fee:
                       
Adult (Day Time: 10.00; Night Time: 15.00)
Child (Day Time: 5.00; Night Time: 5.00)

Cottages:

Tables (Day Time: 50.00; Night Time: 50.00)   
Small (Day Time: 75.00; Night Time: 100.00)         
Medium (Day Time: 150.00; Night Time: 200.00)   
Big (Day Time: 300.00; Night Time: 300.00)     
Large (Day Time: 400.00; Night Time: 400.00)           
Close Cottage (Day Time: 400.00; Night Time: 400.00)     
Tent (It depends on the size)

Corkage:
               
Softdrinks (Per Bottle: 10.00; Per Case: 50.00)   
Beer (Per Bottle: 10.00; Per Case: 50.00)     
Liquor (Per Bottle: 15.00; Per Case: 50.00)
Chaser (Per Bottle: 10.00)
Can (Per Bottle: 10.00; Per Case: 50.00)     

Electrical Charges:

Cellphone (10.00)
Rice Cooker (30.00)
Karaoke (80.00)
Videoke (200.00)
Laptop (80.00)
Water Dispenser (100.00)
Stove (50.00)
Sound System (It depends on the unit)
Others

The principal purpose of these rules and regulations is to guarantee that Isla Beach Resort remains a nice and orderly place in which to spend your vacation. Isla Beach Resort greatly welcomes any questions, suggestions, or comments. Just drop by the office of the manager.