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At the urging of my wife Leonor, who thought that a
little TV exposure for me would perhaps help sell my two
English-usage books, I accepted an invitation to guest on June 24 in
The Explainer, Manuel Quezon 3rd’s talk show on ABS-CBN’s news
channel ANC. By choice I have not cultivated a public persona as an
English-usage columnist during the past six years, always strongly
resisting the idea of appearing on TV and simply relying on the
power of the written word to promote my advocacy for better and
simpler English. The only time I broke my own rule on this was
sometime in 2006 when the lovely Gemma Cruz-Araneta, a former Bb.
Pilipinas International and herself a lover of the English language
(and several other languages for that matter), invited me to guest
on her show Only Gemma! on RJTV. Hers, I must admit, was an
invitation I had been unable to resist.
Manolo Quezon’s invitation
proved to be as irresistible when I was told that he would devote
the one-hour show exclusively to English grammar. After all, it’s
not every day that commercial TV gives a full hour to a subject that
hardly anybody in this country seems to really care enough about,
even if almost everybody complains that the Filipino’s English
proficiency has been plunging precipitously these past many years.
The other overriding reason why I accepted the invitation was, of
course, Manolo himself. An immensely prolific essayist, newspaper
columnist, public speaker, critic, and TV talk-show host of
doubtless erudition, Manolo at 37 is definitely someone who knows
whereof he speaks on most anything—history, culture, politics and
language. Indeed, knowing Manolo’s own great interest in English
made me confident that his show could really give justice to the
subject.
A few minutes before the show
started, Manolo and I got to talk briefly about how the show would
approach its theme. I must admit that I was wary of doing so much
talking during the show and of getting too much exposure in the
process, so I had actually sent to his production staff some visuals
to leaven the discussions, including some cartoonized illustrations
from my second book, The 10 Most Annoying English Grammar Errors.
For good measure, I even provided an animated PowerPoint sequence
showing a badly misplaced modifier being sent to its proper place in
the sentence. But Manolo told me that to discuss the nitty-gritty of
grammar during the show might just defeat the purpose of getting
people interested in reading my grammar books. He then handed me the
script for the show, which to my pleasant surprise showed first-rate
research on English and on the roots and evolution of the English
problem in the Philippines. I knew then that my talking burden
during the show wouldn’t be so heavy after all.
Shortly before he left ahead of
me for the TV studio, Manolo asked me: “So what do you think is
causing the English problem in the Philippines?” My answer was
that most Filipinos take so many liberties not only with English but
also with Filipino and their various regional languages as well.
They merrily mix the form, grammar and structure of these languages
to the point of obliterating any distinctions between them. For
instance, I said, the seemingly fun Taglish expression “D2 na lang
me” in advertising is actually an insidious assault on both
Filipino and English grammar, for it uses the objective-case English
pronoun “me” when, on the contrary, such a construction calls
for the Filipino first-person nominative or subjective form “ako,”
or “I” in English. (The grammatically correct construction is,
or course, ‘D2 na lang ako’ or ‘I’d rather be here.”) In
short, many Filipinos simply get too fond of linguistic jaywalking
for their own good.
(Those who missed The Explainer
on Tuesday can still catch its scheduled replay today, June 28, from
10:00 to 11:00 a.m. on ANC.)
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