My Oxford English

I have a friend who is a bar topnotcher from the University of the Philippines. People say he’s a billionaire. But to me, he’s just a good friend who’s always there to help, syampo-le has more money than me, has more watches than me, is obviously smarter than me, has more wisdom, and of course, speaks and writes better English than yours truly. He reads my blog too, I don’t know how frequent, I will pretend maybe everyday and of course he notices my grammar imperfections.

When Oh My Buhay was about a year old, a few times I called him to verify if a certain phrase was correct. There were times I couldn’t continue my sentence because I wasn’t sure if what I was writing was what I wanted to say. The few times I asked him, tsamba tama naman ang sentence construction so I stopped calling na and I didn’t want to bother him anymore to be my copy editor. If he’s going to waste his time sitting at his desk to edit all my posts, he will no longer be a billionaire. He might lose his spot in Forbes’ List of Billionaires in the Philippines.

He twice told me that my grammar was 80-85%. That was GOOD right? At least I got a passing mark. Not 75% bagsak.
I actually took that as a compliment. Getting 85%. Imagine I passed. Sige nga bilangin natin ang papasa sa kanya.
I was even surprised ang taas ng grade ko. I was expecting he would say 75%. O baka naman he was just nice to me kaya he gave me high marks.

There was no serious moment in my life when I wished to have a perfect English. I wished to have an English accent kunwari taga Buckingham Palace.
My wish was actually to send my kids to better schools so they would have better proficiency in English. We achieved that naman, tingnan mo, gumugulong ang Ingles ng mga anak ko.

There were times I would ask my daughter (kung matyempuhan ko sya nasa bahay while I was posting) what was the best word or phrase to use. Not to make a perfect sentence, but again, my goal was simply to make sure my readers (from A to Z), from class 4 to 1, would get my punchlines.

I don’t recall an instance when I made a big effort to be a grammarian.
Wala sa ambisyon ko yan kaya nga 85% lang ang grade ko. Happy na ako kahit pasang awa.

After college, I enrolled in several self improvement courses. Modelling, Social Graces, Good Manners & Right Conduct, Conversational English, French Language, Chinese Language. Nakakahiya mang sabihin, I even went to Oxford College in UK for English Proficiency (Conversational English). Actually gusto ko lang talaga maging British Accent. Naku during the interview, ang galing ko nga I got a 9/10. I only had two mistakes in the written exam. Not about grammar but some British phrases. The interviewer was so impressed with me. Ang layo ng rating ko sa mga classmates ko ano. Sabi nga nung nag-interview hindi ko na daw kailangan mag-enroll. Ako pinaka-magaling sa klase. Ang mga classmates ko Japanese and Korean.

My Kuya Lito even sent me to New York for an intensive English diction, projection, public speaking classes, etc. I forgot the name of my teacher. She was actually from UK. She was also the coach of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. That’s my claim to fame. We had the same teacher. Twice a week I attended one to one classes in her apartment in Manhattan. And once a week, I trained together with aspiring Broadway actors. It was not about grammar but projection. Wala, sayang lang, after two weeks, nalimutan ko na ang Oxford English ko.

Oh My Buhay is not meant to impress readers or to make an impression na ang galing ko pala sa grammar. Kapal ko nga, I let the public read my posts, I don’t even care to draft and edit before sending my stories to the press.

Hindi bagay sa akin ang perfect English. One time I posted something that I didn’t even know was flawless, my friend suspected that Oyen was the one who wrote it for me. See? I cannot have perfect grammar. Akala anak ko ang nagsulat.

To be able to write something in perfect grammar was not my life goal. Otherwise, I enrolled in PhD in English Literature rather than in PhD in Management. I will never be that person. Hindi nga ako writer. Kinikilabutan nga ako pag tinatanung ako, writer daw ba ako dahil nga sa OMB. I am a lazy person and a fly in the pan. I just go straight to the computer and punch keys. Mali-mali bahala kayo.

However, if you are obsessed with the looks rather than the thought, and have spotted something utterly wrong and wanted to help me correct it, shoot me an email right away, tell me where the mistake was so I could go back to that post and correct it. I am sure you’ll give-up sa dami.
Ha ha, naalala ko tuloy itong mabait na Atenista reader ko, she emailed me to say that I wrote KASAMBAHO rather than kasambahay. Typo error daw.

My grammar is not bad except that it’s not excellent. Kahapon nga may kausap akong Americano, puro “She don’t, he don’t”. Americano na yan ha, meron pang mali. Ako pa galing Binangonan, eh nung araw di ba bawal nga ang nag-i-ingles dun. “maarte, pa English-english pa”. Kaya tingnan mo, ang daming pareho ko.

When I was in college, marami ring mga boys na malabo ang mata. Pag merong nanliligaw sa akin na pa-English-english kasi daw Atenista or Lasalista, pinagtataguan ko agad. Basted. At tsaka pag nanonood ng sine hindi naman kayo nag-uusap, hindi kailangan ang English Proficiency. Lalo na pagnag-li-lips-to-lips. No talk nga.

If I will draft my posts first, edit them, give more thought and attention, nay ko sobrang time consuming yan. Napapagalitan na nga ako lagi ng asawa ko “Tart, tulog ka na, sasakit na naman ulo mo”. Tingin ko kahit anong effort ang gawin ko, wala rin yang improvement, meron siguro, katitik. But I don’t have the time, energy to do that. This is not my career. OMB is my diary. Minsan nahihilis lang ng topic, but it still is my personal diary and will always be.

By the way, Syampole is Syempre in Chinese.