Watch Your Words!

Signing on

They say that we Filipinos are the one of the most creative people to ever populate this planet. So creative that we can fashion almost anything out of an existing one. Improvise when something is lacking. Invent out of dire necessity. Be able to articulate through gestures and sometimes, giving some words in the Filipino language a whole new meaning. On the latter part though, we often put some connotations which sometimes always border on the risqué. Remember "Nakatikim Ka Na Ba Ng Kinse Años?"?. Yup, the infamous tag line scribbled on a tarpaulin billboard somewhere along Roxas Boulevard that caught the ire of moralists and conservatives for its alleged sexual content; that of having sexual liaison with a minor. Of course, those words meant to describe a brand of liquor that was aged for fifteen years. Too bad the company has chosen the wrong words to promote the beverage.

Monay. I am hungry as I type this, so I am thinking about food right now. This is a kind of roll that was usually eaten as a merienda. But now the term used for a kind of bread is used to describe a, ahem, a sensitive part of female anatomy used for procreation. How about this one, itlog; egg in English. What was used to describe something that will hatch into a chick soon has been used for an organ where sperm cells are being made, as well as hanging behind.... you know. [Hey, I have to be consistent with what I profess under the blog title!] Titles of soft core movies popular in the mid-90's through a few years ago often bear sexual connotations. Remember "Patikim ng Pinya"? How about "Kangkong", "Pag ang Palay Naging Bigas, May Bumayo", or "Basa sa Dagat"?

A host of the longest running noontime variety show (we all what it is, and who it was) was suspended for uttering a word that was unfortunately was taken out of context. He was suspended again for the same offense, this time while imitating a celebrity midget with an unintelligible speech when he allegedly said something that describes a sexual act. Oh dear. Led Zeppelin was right when they sang that "sometimes words has two meanings". If this means that every word we say and write can be taken out of context, then how the heck can we express our thoughts without being misinterpreted? Sure, the Filipino vocabulary is one of the richest of them all, but what if every word becomes connotative? How can we talk to somebody without the fear of offending someone? How can we say what we want to say without the recieving end thinking that we are perverts? For me, that is the question.

I'm thinking of an alternative. What if we play charades? Not quite. We can't just expect everybody to guess what we mean, especially the "slow" ones. Pictograms? Nah, just the same. People would look like archeologists trying to decipher hieroglyphs. How about sign language. Whoah, that could be feasible! Hey, can somebody teach me what's "tinitighiyawat ka ba sa mani" in sign language?....

Signing off