On Grammar
Grammatically incorrect statements, whether written or verbal, ticks me off big time. You can say that this is one of my major pet peeves, having been raised in a house where your mom is a grammar-nazi. Also, I grew up with cousins who spent almost their entire lives in Canada and barely spoke Filipino at all, which caused me to learn Tagalog quite late in my youth.
Now, don't get me wrong, guys. I have nothing against our native tongue. I'm actually quite fond of speaking in Filipino and had become quite fluent in it as I grew older, but the English language is my bread and butter. You see, I work in a call center.
Working in a call center exposes you to so many things, and one of them is bad grammar. Agents saying "Can I hold you for a while?" instead of saying "May I put you on hold?" to their clients or "I'll gonna be able to..." instead of "I will be able to..." are just some of the statements that would burn through your eardrums like acid through sheet metal. It's irritating. It's annoying. And it makes me wonder what the hell is going on with the education system here in the Philippines.
I used to tell my agents "If it doesn't sound right, then it probably isn't" every time I coach them on their communication skills. I realized just recently that this is no longer an effective approach. Some people cannot tell the difference between correct and incorrect sentence construction anymore because they do not know what a grammatically correct sentence sounds like.
And then you browse through Facebook. Oh. My. God. Facebook. There are times that I just vehemently refuse to check my Facebook news feeds in fear of what I might see there. The typical interchanged use of "in" and "on" are tolerable, but actually seeing the English language bastardized over and over again because the person who posted the status update refuses to say what they want to say in Filipino. There is nothing wrong with posting a status update on Facebook (or even on Twitter, for that matter) in Filipino! There is absolutely nothing wrong with it! I swear to you! I post stuff on both social networks in Filipino all the time!
Imagine seeing this on your timeline or wall:
"...does anyone experienced being on train and being brought at the depot and thrown out of the MRT at rush hour on North station before going to the office?"
- You confuse me. You're on the train? Were you on top of the train when you were riding it that time? Like on the roof? Don't you mean in the train?
Or how about this:
"I'm boring. I have nothing to do at home."
- Are you sure you're boring? Or annoying? Because those two sentences annoyed the hell out of me.
Here's one last sample:
"I'm missing being with you..."
- It's "miss" sweetie. Two -ing suffixes is too much for your sentence to handle, it's about to explode.
Don't even get me started with jejespeak. I swear, I will shower you with slimy, green, chunky fluid that is not green pea soup, but has pretty much the same consistency as it. Jejespeak is a bastardization of language all together. Period.
Our biggest challenge here is that basic and correct grammar is something that you need to learn early on during your impressionable years. Retraining someone in the English language is not a walk in the park. Believe me, I have tried to do so several times, but with very, very minimal success. Grammar is something that should be ingrained in our system, whether it may be correct grammar in the Filipino or English language.
But, as it is, the bastardization of the English language, and at times even the Filipino language, is something that we need to tolerate until we find the most effective way to help our fellow citizens in straightening their tongues when they speak that does not require a pair of pliers. It's going to be a difficult road with numerous pitfalls, and it will test our patience until we feel like our patience cannot be stretched anymore, but the end results if we do succeed in our efforts will be completely worth it.
In the meantime, I will forge on in my role as a coach to my direct reports and help them master fluency in the English language. I will help them and help them and help them until I have nothing left to give.
Now excuse me while I reread this entry to make sure that other grammar-nazis out there won't tear my work apart when they read this.
PS: We Pinoys are not the only ones who are challenged when it comes to the English language. Even Americans suffer from this as well, and English is their native tongue. This is not something to be ashamed of, but it is something that we need to work on.
Now, don't get me wrong, guys. I have nothing against our native tongue. I'm actually quite fond of speaking in Filipino and had become quite fluent in it as I grew older, but the English language is my bread and butter. You see, I work in a call center.
Working in a call center exposes you to so many things, and one of them is bad grammar. Agents saying "Can I hold you for a while?" instead of saying "May I put you on hold?" to their clients or "I'll gonna be able to..." instead of "I will be able to..." are just some of the statements that would burn through your eardrums like acid through sheet metal. It's irritating. It's annoying. And it makes me wonder what the hell is going on with the education system here in the Philippines.
I used to tell my agents "If it doesn't sound right, then it probably isn't" every time I coach them on their communication skills. I realized just recently that this is no longer an effective approach. Some people cannot tell the difference between correct and incorrect sentence construction anymore because they do not know what a grammatically correct sentence sounds like.
And then you browse through Facebook. Oh. My. God. Facebook. There are times that I just vehemently refuse to check my Facebook news feeds in fear of what I might see there. The typical interchanged use of "in" and "on" are tolerable, but actually seeing the English language bastardized over and over again because the person who posted the status update refuses to say what they want to say in Filipino. There is nothing wrong with posting a status update on Facebook (or even on Twitter, for that matter) in Filipino! There is absolutely nothing wrong with it! I swear to you! I post stuff on both social networks in Filipino all the time!
Imagine seeing this on your timeline or wall:
"...does anyone experienced being on train and being brought at the depot and thrown out of the MRT at rush hour on North station before going to the office?"
- You confuse me. You're on the train? Were you on top of the train when you were riding it that time? Like on the roof? Don't you mean in the train?
Or how about this:
"I'm boring. I have nothing to do at home."
- Are you sure you're boring? Or annoying? Because those two sentences annoyed the hell out of me.
Here's one last sample:
"I'm missing being with you..."
- It's "miss" sweetie. Two -ing suffixes is too much for your sentence to handle, it's about to explode.
Don't even get me started with jejespeak. I swear, I will shower you with slimy, green, chunky fluid that is not green pea soup, but has pretty much the same consistency as it. Jejespeak is a bastardization of language all together. Period.
Our biggest challenge here is that basic and correct grammar is something that you need to learn early on during your impressionable years. Retraining someone in the English language is not a walk in the park. Believe me, I have tried to do so several times, but with very, very minimal success. Grammar is something that should be ingrained in our system, whether it may be correct grammar in the Filipino or English language.
But, as it is, the bastardization of the English language, and at times even the Filipino language, is something that we need to tolerate until we find the most effective way to help our fellow citizens in straightening their tongues when they speak that does not require a pair of pliers. It's going to be a difficult road with numerous pitfalls, and it will test our patience until we feel like our patience cannot be stretched anymore, but the end results if we do succeed in our efforts will be completely worth it.
In the meantime, I will forge on in my role as a coach to my direct reports and help them master fluency in the English language. I will help them and help them and help them until I have nothing left to give.
Now excuse me while I reread this entry to make sure that other grammar-nazis out there won't tear my work apart when they read this.
PS: We Pinoys are not the only ones who are challenged when it comes to the English language. Even Americans suffer from this as well, and English is their native tongue. This is not something to be ashamed of, but it is something that we need to work on.
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