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Two columns ago, I took issue with a reader who had expressed
disgust over the fumbling response of beauty contest aspirant Janina
San Miguel to this question during the recent Binibining Pilipinas
finals: “What role did your family play to you as candidate to
Binibining Pilipinas?” I contended that she was stumped probably
not so much because her English was deficient but because the
question was so badly phrased and was too vague, too abstract, and
too difficult to answer. I then challenged readers to role-play as
Ms. San Miguel and give a sensible answer to that question.
Three readers took up the challenge: Mr. Juanito
F. of West Virginia and Mr. Douglas M. of New Jersey, both United
States residents, and Ms. Nora Baua of Quezon City, who sent me her
answers a week later.
Let’s begin with the answer of Mr. F in the
role of Janina: “My family has always been supportive of me and
has always encouraged me to pursue my interest in life.”
He explains that answer as follows: “I don’t
think that question is really such a big deal. The sentence
structure may have been bungled by the questioner but the essence of
the question is still there. It fundamentally asks how Janina’s
family had influenced her decision to join the beauty contest.
“We hear that form of question every
time. ‘What role did your coach play in your decision to stay in
school?’ was a question recently asked a standout athlete of the
University of Virginia who had opted to finish his degree instead of
turning pro with the possibility of earning millions of dollars.
(The athlete’s answer: The coach played the role of a wise adviser
by convincing him that by staying another year in college, he could
further improve his stock and thus increase his earning power).
‘What role did winning that big jackpot play in your acquiring a
new lifestyle?’ was a question posed to a West Virginia lotto
winner. (The winner’s answer: Winning the lotto played the role of
providing him ‘easy’ money, which turned him into a compulsive
spender.)
“No matter how you slice it, there’s no
mystery in understanding any of those questions. So I can’t
understand why that form of question had elicited such a strong
reaction from someone like you who eats, drinks, dreams, and
breathes English grammar—or from anyone else for that matter. (You
thus remind me of a barber who insists on looking at a person’s
character through his hair.)
“I wouldn’t go as far as crucifying Janina
for fumbling with that question as some of her critics had done on
YouTube. She’s young and quite possibly was nervous as she tried
to look and do her best on that world stage. Sometimes it’s hard
to maintain your composure when suddenly faced with an unrehearsed
situation—especially when you know that the whole world is focused
on you and you’re not Joe Carillo! All of us have had our own
embarrassing moments at one time or another, but unfortunately for
Janina, hers happened under the scrutinizing glare of the spotlight,
making the situation even worse than it really was.
“To that young lady, then, I say: Get up, dust
yourself off, learn your lesson from that fall, ignore the critics,
and cheerfully move on. Notwithstanding that faux pas that your
hecklers are trying to hang you for, be proud that you’ve been to
where only a few have been before.”
Here’s my initial assessment of the response
of Mr. F. as Janina: It’s well-phrased but vague, insubstantial,
and tangential. It says nothing specific about what Janina’s
parents did; as such, it compares poorly with the athlete’s and
lotto winner’s very concrete answers as cited by Mr. F. above.
Once I’ve presented the answers of the two other readers, I’ll
explain why badly worded abstract questions tend to elicit such
responses.
j8carillo@yahoo.com
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