Out of no where, I decided to change the language settings of my Facebook account. Now it is in Filipino. My favorite feature on Facebook is “Poke”. You can easily caught someone’s attention with out thinking for right words to say. This is Facebook’s equivalent to Friendster’s Send a Smile, both are useful for an introvert like me. But I found it funny that translated “Poke” to “Kalibitin“. Kalibitin connotes the act of initiating coitus. But I can not suggest a replacement which is less sexual.
The history of our country’s film industry would show us how creative we are in titling adult films using common words but still we understood what to expect. I grew up in a town with a movie house. I can still remember the titles, Paninda, Patikim ng Pinya and Kangkong. This morning I saw these pictures from Video 48′s fan page:
These films were released during the Bomba era of the Philippine cinema, circa 1970′s. The titles were pertaining to hunger and thirst yet they used for Bomba film. That is how creative we are because we connected the dots between the different things. I was in Iloilo City around 2005 or 2006 when the local news anchor used the phrase “ring the bell” with great emphasis while reporting an accident where in a man was shot on his most sensitive part.
I received a feedback that I can only write “green-minded” poems when I was in high school and I was comfortable in the wordplay in Filipino. The criticized poem contained the word apoy. I was not referring to anything below the belt then.
But on the second thought the root cause might not be in the language per se but in a greater scope of our culture. In the the industry I belong with, the Business Processes Outsourcing, our small talks during our breaks or idle/avail time usually go to the region down under. As I observed as well in the barrio conversations end up nothing less down and dirty.
