English

Many English teachers, here in the Philippines, are distressed because they feel that the quality of our English is deteriorating.

It is true.

The quality of our English, now, in our schools, is much lower than it was two generations ago.

But if you compare the quality of our English with the quality of English in other places, we are really not so bad.

Here are some examples.

Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop:

Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

In Bangkok dry cleaners:

Drop your trousers here for best results.

Outside a Paris dress shop:

Order your summers suit. Because is big rush. We will execute customers in strict rotation.

From the Soviet weekly:

There will be a Moscow exhibition of arts by 150,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.

A sign posted in Germany’s Black Forest:

It is strictly forbidden on our Black Forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.

In a Zurich hotel:

Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist:

Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.

In a Rome laundry:

Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.

In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency:

Taken one of our horse-driven city tours. We guaran- tee no miscarriages.

Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand:

Would you like to ride on your own ass?

In a Swiss mountain inn:

Special today – no ice cream.

In a Bangkok Temple:

It is forbidden to enter a woman, even a foreigner if dressed as a man.

In a Tokyo bar:

Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office:

We take your bags and send them in all directions.

On the door of a Moscow hotel room:

If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.

In a Norwegian cocktail lounge:

Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.

In a Frankfurt zoo:

Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

In the office of a Roman doctor:

Specialist in women and other diseases.

In an Acapulco hotel:

The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

In a Tokyo shop:

Our nylons cost more than common, but you’ll find they are best in the long run.

From a Japanese instruction booklet about using a hotel air conditioner:

Cooles and heats. If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.

From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo:

When passenger of foot heave in sight, tooth the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tooth him with vigor.

See?

We are really not so bad.

The Filipina, of course, communicates with body language. She does not rely on words. In fact, sometimes the message she wants to deliver contradicts the words that she speaks.

I have a good friend who works in the compound of the Ateneo de Manila. Once I was attending a meeting there, and she asked: "When your meeting is over, could I go home with you? I have an appointment in Manila, and it is so hard to go downtown from here, by public transportation."

I said: "Sure!" The meeting took longer than I expected. I ran up to her office, when the meeting was over. I could hear her typing, furiously. I knocked, opened the door, and said: "Let’s go! We’re late!" She looked at me, distressed; looked back at her typewriter; looked at me again, and said; plaintively: "I’m not quite finished. . . . . You better go." I said: "Okay!" and off I went.

The next day she came into my office and said: "I’m sorry about what happened last night. When you left, I broke into tears. The staff heard me crying, and tried to console me, but I cried for two hours. So I had to tell them that I was crying because of what you did."

I said, in wonder: "What did I do?" She gasped at my stupidity, and said: "I said to you ‘You better go’ – and you went!" When she looked at me, in distress, the message was: "Wait for me!" But we-dumb American – I listened to the words, and left. I might be a teacher of English, but my mark in body language is zero.