Sunday, January 11, 2009
There it goes again. Eat, Bulaga! segment over, a trailer for Shake,
Rattle & Roll 10 flashes onscreen, then the proud message: "Now on
it's second week."
What is wrong with GMA-7? Not a day ends that it doesn't remind us
it's the number 1 TV network in the country. Its shows are ratings
hits, its coffers are presumably bulging from all those ads, it pays
its contract stars and network anchors plush salaries, it recently
inaugurated a spanking-new, 900-million- peso building to punctuate
all that high-flying success.
And yet it can't hire one decent copywriter or editor to check the
blurbs it runs on TV?
I'm beginning to think that the network is in the thick of a
clandestine campaign to redefine the rules of English grammar. How to
account, after all, for its nonchalant and sustained mangling of the
language, with nobody from its army of power executives and creative
bright lights seeming to be bothered to correct the boo-boos?
In June 2008, I noted its use of the ungrammatical program ID "Pablo
Gomez'Magdusa Ka." Where the possessive S went, nobody knew. The
wayward apostrophe reappears in Shake, Rattle & Roll's "Now on it's
second week." And when the movie Scaregivers was shown a couple of
months back, it came with the tagline, "Now showing on theaters
nationwide."
At this point, let me anticipate something: As surely as a carnival
seal will begin dancing at the flick of its handler's hand, some idiot
will post a comment at the end of this piece denouncing me for being a
"grammar police." Well, what of it? Let's examine that argument.
What's a grammar cop, anyway? Someone who's persnickety about verb
agreements and tenses to the point of unreasonableness? Someone who
obsesses about the lack of verbal polish to the exclusion of
everything else?
Call me a grammar cop if, say, I laugh at your ungrammatical blog
posts without any provocation, or I point out the mistakes in how you
say something rather than acknowledging the basic valid point of what
you're saying.
I've never done that, though. If you're writing for your own space and
pleasure, far be it for me to mock you for your deficiencies in the
English language, whatever they are. That's your call--though, to be
fair, if you can't tell the difference between It's and Its, I don't
think you should expect to be understood clearly by everyone every time.
At its most basic, grammar is about communicating clearly. Mess it up,
and you mess up not only your message, but the mind of the poor chap
you're talking to.
But we're not talking here of blogs or personal journals, where you
can eviscerate grammar to your heart's content and no one would
care--least of all Mr. Grammar Police here. We're talking of the
number 1 TV station in the country. We're talking of a network whose
reach and influence covers millions of viewers here and even
abroad--an ocean of impressionable minds who, lamentable a development
as it is, get much of their daily practical learning from TV.
Not only are they gorging on vapid, insipid TV shows now, they're also
reading badly-written blurbs! Which, because they're punchier and
shorter, tend to stick to the mind more easily. And which, not knowing
any better, viewers will then repeat down the line.
This is not just a question of sticking to the rules of grammar. This
is about the implications of how we use language. Words have meaning.
Words have consequences. If GMA-7 is this sloppy when it comes to
basic copywriting, where else is it slapdash and careless? In its news
gathering and dissemination? In its professed fidelity to
truth-telling? In its claims to honest ratings and fair competition?
Screw any aspirations to excellence, then, anyway "its" all the same
banana?
As for the sadly ill-informed who thinks getting worked up over
apostrophes and prepositions on TV is much ado about nothing, I have a
challenge for him or her: Personal pronouns, too, are part of grammar.
You know, words like He, She andIt--He and She referring to human
beings, It to non-human beings or things, or so the rule goes.
If grammar is that unimportant to him or her--and, I repeat, the use
of pronouns, too, is part of grammar--then let's disregard the rules
from now on and start usingIt when referring to that person. Not He or
She, but It--anyway, why follow the rules? Down with grammar! Let's,
in effect, put him or her on the same level as a plant, a rock, a fly.
That simple. Any takers?
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