Minding my language

A reader I remember from way back – Ramon Alfonso A. Fuentes of the Senior Citizens’ Advisory and Advocacy Group – wrote me a very nice letter (the old-fashioned way, by mail, addressed to "Butch Dalisay, Esq.") to bring a question of language to my attention. Mr. Fuentes quoted a statement I made in my column a couple of weeks ago:

‘UP Diliman takes in about 4,000 freshmen every year – more than double what it used to be since UP built its last dorm…’ To what does the verb phrase ‘used to be’ refer? My reading is, it insinuates at referring to ‘take in’ – the act. If I am correct, then shouldn’t the verb phrase have been ‘used to take in’? A case of an ellipsis?"

Before I answer that question, let me just say that I get many inquiries like this from eagle-eyed readers attuned to the finer points of the English language – and more than half the time, they’re right. I hate to admit it, but often this column gets written the way sausage is made (perhaps an insult to the sausage maker, whose consistency, at least, can be depended on). It’s doubly bad when I make a mistake because I’m supposed to be a professor of English and an editor, someone without any proper business confusing his who’s and whom’s. What would the kids say?

Another reader gently chided me a few months ago for writing "Like I said…" instead of the correct "As I was saying…" But my counterargument then was that sometimes I prefer to write colloquially or informally, in which case "like I said" would be perfectly fine. (Try doing a Google search on the phrase and you’ll see how it’s been used all these years, even as the title of a song!) To his credit and my relief, the letter-writer acknowledged the point. Grammar is one thing and usage another, with usage being considerably more pliant, molding itself to the specific situation in which language is being used.

Sometimes, "wrong" English is the smarter way to go. One of my favorite cartoons has Elvis Presley’s English teacher fretting over her pupil’s egregious misuse of the language, and figuring how to correct "You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog."

Now, to Mr. Fuentes. Yes, thank you, very properly speaking, the phrasing should go "what it used to take in." But I’ll plead ellipsis – the omission of something implied or understood in context – by suggesting that "what it used to be" refers to the old number of freshmen rather than the university’s action. I’m not sure if my explanation makes sense, but I always appreciate people who mind their language – and mine.

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I was invited by my fraternity – the UP Alpha Sigma fraternity, established in 1962 by the likes of activist Nilo Tayag – to speak at a recent gathering. Strangely enough – or maybe not – I think it was the first time in all these years that I got to address the "brods."

Some of you may be surprised to learn that I’m a frat man. Sometimes, when I dwell on it, I’m surprised myself, especially when I think of how fraternities have degenerated in the public’s eye into bands of barbaric thugs. I certainly don’t see myself bashing someone else’s head in – and I’m pretty sure most frat men would rather avoid violence and finish college than land in prison. (Today at UP, one frat man – Raymund Narag, who was acquitted after spending seven years in prison for a fraternity-related death – serves as a peace advocate among fraternities.)

So why did I join, and what did I expect of my fraternity? Here’s an excerpt from what I said:

Let me address myself to the youngest brothers here – the brods who don’t know me and whom I don’t know. I especially wish to congratulate our newest graduates – also our newest alumni members – whose professional lives are just beginning.

I joined the fraternity 33 years ago. I was 17 years old then, a first-semester freshman. This is something we don’t allow these days, for good reason – we want to give freshmen time to get their bearings in the University, to know the student organizations they may wish to join, and to think deeply about life-altering decisions, like joining a fraternity.

In my case, my eagerness to join Alpha Sigma might be explained or even excused by the fact that this was a decision I had already made in high school, where I was greatly impressed by my physics teacher, Vic Manarang, and by the writing of another young editor from another school, Gary Olivar. Because of these models, I resolved that I would join Alpha Sigma as soon as I stepped into UP. In effect, I wasn’t even recruited, although Oying Rimon formally sponsored my membership; I practically applied.

Since then, over these past three decades, I have had the opportunity and the pleasure of knowing many fine young men – or men who were once young – as fraternity brothers, and also as colleagues in the University and in the profession of writing and public relations. As a creative writer, one of my earliest and strongest influences was the late Boy Noriega, whose sharpness of mind and sensitivity of spirit remain unmatched in Filipino drama.

Boy embodied for me what this fraternity should be about: personal excellence in the service of the nation. As one of the last century’s greatest Filipino playwrights and also as an economist and banker – someone who represented the Philippines in trade negotiations in Geneva at age 23 – Boy exemplified the best that we can be, in personal talent and public commitment. It is sad that he died so young, almost ten years ago now. But it is marvelous that he lived at all, the way he did, like Achilles, who chose the short but glorious life.

You and I who have outlived Boy have had the privilege of seeing what he never saw – Manila’s new cityscape, the new cars, computers, cinemas, and so on. (Frankly I don’t think he would have been too impressed.) And yet we remain burdened by the same challenges Boy confronted – poverty, injustice, ignorance, intolerance, greed. Boy wrote about them in his plays, and did something about them in his economics.

Lives like Boy’s remind us of how brief life itself is, but also how many opportunities there are for our lives to matter to others. This is what we are here for, and this is what this fraternity was established for – to serve the people. In a sense, it was easier for Boy to leave something behind. Great art endures on its own, regardless of its maker. For most of us, our art and our legacy will consist of more mundane but no less worthy achievements, such as how we deal with our families and communities, how we manage our organizations, how we serve our clients, and how we practice the fraternity motto of "truth, reason, and justice" in our daily lives.

There are many who say that the fraternity today is an anachronism, a throwback to feudal tradition. I know that this annoys or even angers those of us who obviously believe otherwise. However, if we care about public perceptions – and I think we should – then we should accept the fact that the burden of proof is on us, to manifest and to prove our continuing relevance in the life of the nation.

Just as we mature from wet-eared sophomores to responsible citizens, fraternities themselves must grow up, from juvenile mayhem, mischief, and machismo to responsible leadership – indeed, to servant leadership. The metaphor may remain feudal, but we set out to form and to join a kind of knighthood, not a Mafia.

I cannot truthfully say that I am proud of everything all the brods have done, and I will eagerly argue with some of them about the correctness and the efficacy of their actions. It is not important for us to all agree on everything, because we cannot and perhaps should not; what is important is for us to debate intelligently and civilly, to maintain open lines of communication, now that we can be found on all bands of the political spectrum – with NPA supremo Benny Tiamzon on one end and Presidential spokesman Mike Defensor on the other, and perennial suspect Gringo Honasan somewhere in between.

These past elections have provided a demonstration of just how far forward we have come on the political front, with brods such as Rene Velasco, Gary Olivar, Pato Gregorio, Dindo Manhit, and Ray Roy, among others, enlivening the campaigns of almost all the presidential candidates and their parties, and others such as Randy David and Raul Pangalangan providing sage commentary and counsel to those in need of it.

This newfound prominence may be a kind of reward, but it is also an awesome challenge for us to be on our best behavior, wherever we may stand. It is also a challenge for our 41-year-old fraternity to re-examine what we can do in the University – how best we can intervene in the young lives of our recruits – to produce a corps of young men imbued with, as another of our ideals declares, "in all endeavors, the mark of excellence."

We will never lack for individual luminaries and their contributions – past, present, and future. We cannot do without personal excellence, and must continue to insist on it. When I teach undergraduate classes and a student reveals himself to me as a brod, he receives my brand of special consideration: I immediately warn him that I would expect him to do more and do better in my class, lest it later be said that I gave a fellow Alpha Sigman a free cut. If I raise a question that no one else can answer, I expect him to be able to.

But beyond seeking individual glory, we need to set and achieve new, clear, and realizable goals as an organization. What can we do to support scholarship, or to promote democratic debate, or to improve governance – in other words, to bring the considerable resources we have amassed to bear on some vital aspect of the life of the University and the nation? What single mark can we make and leave behind as a band of brothers?

That, my young friends, is our burden to answer, and our honor to achieve.

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Send e-mail to Butch Dalisay at penmanila@yahoo.com.