1 - The Misuses of Language“Contaminate” is an English verb of Latin origin that means “to pollute or make impure by contact.” The body of that unfortunate male who got sucked into the city’s water pipeline, which until that time had not been found, could conceivably “contaminate” the water supply. The correct sense of “contaminate,” of course, is to do something to pollute or add an impurity to a vulnerable but inanimate physical object, very rarely a living creature. You can contaminate a sterile laboratory specimen with unwanted foreign matter, you can contaminate your pious thinking with prurient thoughts, but you cannot contaminate others with disease. You can contaminate dressed chicken, but you cannot contaminate the live broiler. That is actually something another English word does better and with greater precision.
IMAGE CREDIT: BU.EDU It’s perplexing, therefore, why for several weeks now, churches in Metro Manila have been urging the faithful to keep on intoning that badly worded line in their special prayer for divine protection from the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS: “Protect us from contamination with the SARS virus.” The imagery the word “contamination” conveys is that of a deadly fluid flowing or blowing into an inert vessel, which the living human body certainly is not. The correct verb for that line in the prayer is, of course, “infect,” another word of Latin origin that means “to communicate a disease, mood, or the like.” With “infect,” the verb’s object is the living rather than the dead or the inanimate. Of course, “to contaminate or taint” is also synonymous in a way with “infect,” but mostly in the context of living things making non-living things impure.
It is thus earnestly to be desired that those with the delicate job of crafting messages and prayers for the church will be more discerning and careful with their language. This may seem like a small thing, but as they say, we should be very careful when we pray or make a wish. What is prayed for or wished for, even if wrongly worded to mean the opposite, just might be granted or come true.
Speaking about the misuses of English, the TV catchword
“Watchawant!” by one of the country’s worthier networks comes across as a dreadful curiosity. Its anchors and station breaks use the phrase as if it was some mantra or delightful perfume that could seduce viewers into watching nothing but the network’s shows. It is catchy slang, of course, obviously designed to make the network attractive to younger, more affluent, and upward-mobile televiewers.
But it is a wonder if the network’s studio bosses ever checked out the bonafides of that phrase and the wisdom of using it. Although they treat
“Watchawant” as a marketing jewel, the only respectable reference I found about it is in an essay by writer Alan Cohen, author of the best-selling
The Dragon Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. In that essay, “Make Whatcha Want,” he quotes a teacher of his as saying long ago, “Take
whatcha got and make
whatcha want.” In the American context the line surely evokes whimsy and folksiness. Outside of it, however, I’m afraid that the expression is pure gutter language. It has absolutely no place or redeeming value in our cultural setting. I even have this feeling that it may even have been just picked up by the TV network’s writer from the terribly obscene gangsta’ rap
“Whatcha Want” in JT Money’s song album entitled “Pimping On Wax.” I can only quote these least offensive pertinent lines of the song:
Death to them niggas that playa hate
Can’t apologize nigga, its too late
Whatcha want boy, come meet your fate
Know when you take, you’re _ss gonna die
I'm the last nigga you wanna try (Hook)
Whatcha want boy, nigga what you want huh? (x8)
This and the first misuse of English I described earlier were obviously mistakes, but a third one that’s said on television practically every day could not be anything but deliberate and purposive. It is that audaciously self-aggrandizing line that the news anchors of a major TV network speak out without blinking at the end of their newscasts:
“Kami ang sandigan ng katotohanan.” (“We are the pillars of truth.”). Even kings in the old days simply did not presume that they had the right to make that claim; they first had to invoke and provide ample proof of their divinity to do so. The only ones tolerated to make that claim without proof were people with the Messianic complex, but sometimes they got mercilessly flogged or crucified for their audacity.
When humility and restraint were still virtues in broadcast journalism, they used to get an off-camera announcer to say self-serving words like those. That nameless, off-camera talent was supposed to represent the voice of the larger-than-life institution, and so can sing all the hossanahs to its goodness without unduly offending the sensibility of the viewer or listener.
(June 3, 2003)
