Collective Feedbacks

Wow. I never imagined I would receive so much e-mail in response to my column about English collective nouns ("On Collective Nounages," Feb. 3). This begs the question: Don’t people have anything better to do? The e-mailed responses ran the gamut from commiseration to mild criticism, and, if nothing else, the experience has given me fresh examples of "collective nounages" to share with you. Now, imagine if I had written about something important!

Let’s start with the term "feedbacks." One usually runs across this word coming from a public official who is running off at the mouth ("We will wait for more feedbacks before we proceed with the program"). Feedback, as we know, is a collective noun that can manage nicely without an "s" at the end.

A reader also pointed out the following sign which he found posted on a local staircase: "Watch your steps." As the reader (Tony Guidote) facetiously inquired: "Should one pay extra attention to each little step or should one just be generally careful as one goes up or down the stairs?" Well, you be the judge, Tony. He further lamented that "we should not be completely hemmed in by common American usage or practice alone," and noted that "grammarians and linguists can be the cruelest of social scientists," focusing their sharp, beady-eyed scrutiny on English slipups.

Guilty as charged, Tony-boy. However, contrary to what some people may think, the subject of collective nouns does not really make my blood boil, nor does it make me see red. It doesn’t even get my dander up, to tell you the truth. It’s just that, when people say "feedbacks" or "luggages" to me, I find it very amusing (though I hate to see this sort of English allowed passage in local newspapers by people who should know better).

I can’t help it if I get a chuckle when a local necktie chain invites customers to check out the store’s "Hot New Stocks!" Of course we know the word "stock" refers to the collected merchandise in a store, and that "stocks" can refer either to purchased shares in a company, or those nasty wooden clamps used to keep American Puritans in check. (Surprisingly, though, most salespeople manage to get the usage right when they deliver the following stock answer to most of your questions: "Sorry, out of stock.")

Another reader had a quibble over the word "grounds." Apparently, Mrs. Sara Collins Medina got into a disagreement with a local writer over an inscription that was to decorate a monument to Ninoy Aquino. The writer insisted the inscription should read "treading on sacred grounds." Mrs. Medina felt otherwise. "As the wife of the monument’s (Filipino) designer," she commented, "I weighed in with remarks to the effect that we were not talking about leftover coffee." Her point prevailed, "sacred ground" went on the monument (after the sculptor refused to carve "grounds"), and correct English was preserved, at least for another day.

A certain Kevin Huang wrote: "By now you must realize that the English language (as spoken and written by Filipinos) in this country has assumed a totally different persona. Where else in the world is the phrase ‘for awhile’ used to place a caller on hold over the telephone? Where else in the world is a restroom called a ‘C.R.’?" Nowhere else I can think of, that’s for sure. His advice to me was to "learn to listen and extrapolate the message behind the battered words and syntax. Isn’t that what language is really all about?" I’m trying, Kevin; really, I am.

Some readers thought I should focus my attention on the unique ways Filipinos use prepositions, while others wanted to see more coverage of jologs-speak. Other responses were more forgiving, such as Angela Yu, who commented, "Great article! Appreciate the reminder(s) on adding s/esses." And Marian Fides Aldana wrote: "I never even thought why sometimes I’d read words like ‘furnitures,’ then read it somewhere else written as ‘furniture,’ with both words meaning the same thing! Now I know." Hey, if I helped even one person on this issue, it was worth it.

I got an even better perspective on the collective-nouns issue from a writer who knows quite a lot about both English and its local varieties: Ms. Gilda Cordero-Fernando. She delivered the following observations in a hand-written note, which she apparently wrote while waiting in her dentist’s office: "The Pinoy ‘s’ is of long standing, though it has become worse... These are usually Spanish in derivation." Words like botones, perlas, relos, sapatos, and peras have become part of the local tongue, she notes, though this doesn’t explain how the words acquire an extra "s," even from their Spanish forms (boton, perla, reloj, zapato, pera). Further confusion arises with English words that sound plural even when they’re referring to a single object, such as scissors or pants. She jokes that "sometimes we make up for it and say, ‘P20 for one pant.’"

And Ms. Cordero-Fernando’s own theory on the collective-nouns issue? "Pinoys perhaps believe that esses, apostrophes, quotation marks, commas and other diacritical marks are merely decorations to one’s script. Example, ‘Second-hand book’s for sale,’ or my kitchen blackboard which reads ‘Velia called!’ As if Velia doesn’t call every week."

Most of all, she declares the current state of Pinoy English to be "great fun." Maybe so. It’s a little less fun, perhaps, if you spend your days hammering the language into shape for a newspaper, as I once did. But I tend to give greater consideration to hand-written notes, since they take longer to craft than e-mails. They’re more personal, too.

Anyway, I hope to leave behind the issue of collective nouns for now, and I trust most readers will agree that, in matters of Pinoy English, while my tongue is firmly in cheek, my heart is in the right place.

Can’t wait to write about those Pinoy prepositions, though.

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