Misadventures in idioms October 9, 2006
WE HAD A HILARIOUS INCIDENT IN THE HOTEL where we were staying in Honolulu last week. “We” included a group of Filipinos who wrote for Filipino publications in the United States and me. My friends had rooms on the fourth floor while I had mine on the 19th. As it turned out, higher was better. The water at least flowed better, the pipes on the lower floors being intermittently clogged and producing not very pleasant effects on the toilets.
After repeated and increasingly strident pleas to the hotel manager for help, they finally got a plumber who, not surprisingly, turned out to be a Filipino. The hotel was full of them, from front desk clerks to cleaning persons. Tagalog and Ilocano words wafted in the lobby and corridors like wisps of cigarette smoke.
The Filipino plumber was in his 40s, and unlike most Filipinos there who were cheerful and eager to please, he was cross. My friends figured he was having a bad day. He banged and emitted low-register grumbling noises while he dredged up the toilet bowl as if to show he didn’t have an easy job but was doing it manfully. When he was almost done, one of my friends, Marlon, struck up a conversation with him—in English. He told him that they were transferring to the topmost floor anyway, but that it was good he was fixing things for the next occupant. He joked that he would be leaving him to the tender mercies of the room’s next “victim.”
The comment sent the plumber through the roof. He replied angrily that the hotel was not in the habit of victimizing customers. Certainly he did not take his duties lightly, the state of the hotel’s plumbing could not be held to reflect on him. Marlon’s roommates came to his rescue, telling the plumber with much amusement that Marlon was just teasing him.
Marlon himself tried to placate him. He told him he was glad that he showed exceptional loyalty to his place of employment, which reflected well on Filipinos. “I know,” he said, “where you’re coming from.”
Instead of appeasing him, Marlon stoked the fires of his fury. The plumber became livid and turned on him wrathfully. Of course, he said, Marlon knew from his accent where he was coming from. He was coming from the Ilocos, and demanded to know why Marlon insisted on insulting his race.
There was no getting him out of it, his mind had locked on to the idea. My friends thought restraint was the better part of valor, and simply let loose an explosion of mirth as soon as he left the room. They laughed their insides out. Till the day I left, we were using the phrase on one another during conversations like a running gag. Each time somebody expressed an opinion about things, we’d say: “I know where you’re coming from.”
My friends “were coming from” various parts of the United States.
I told them I knew of a similar incident that happened to a friend of mine. This wasn’t apocryphal, I said, it really happened.
It was during martial law, and my friend, a journalist, was with an international church-based fact-finding team to investigate the massacre of some villagers in a far-flung area. I forget now which part in Mindanao it was. After visiting the site where the killings took place—the military claimed it was a battle with insurgents; the witnesses, who refused to be named, said it was a summary execution of suspects—my friend’s group hurried off to a nearby camp to dig up more details about the incident. That was risky business then, the provincial commander being lord and master of the countryside, who could summon even the mayor and governor like vassals. During the twilight years of martial law in particular, when this happened, the combat-fatigued and half-crazed officers were the last people you wanted to fraternize with, or posed unpleasant questions to.
My friend’s group was led to a room where they were told to wait for someone who would brief them. A stern-looking young captain came in and said the provincial commander was out, and he was there instead to answer questions. Asked to give the military side, he stuck to the story about an encounter between their men and the local insurgents. When my friend’s group said the wounds of the victims did not seem consistent with an encounter, the captain raised his voice and he said that as far as he was concerned the troops were telling the truth.
My friend asked who led the patrol. The captain answered that he was not in a position to answer that. My friend asked how many soldiers and rebels took part in the firefight. The captain answered that he was not in a position to answer that. My friend asked what he thought of the witnesses’ story that the victims had been rounded up from their houses and dragged away into the fields, from where they later heard shots. The captain answered that he was not in a position to answer that.
In exasperation, my friend said with a tinge of sarcasm: “Well, who is in a position to answer that? Who calls the shots here?”
The captain suddenly grew livid and turned on my friend. “Shots?” he asked angrily, “I didn’t hear any shots. We don’t shoot people here.”
It took some time before they could calm the captain down. But my friend’s comment ended the meeting right there and then. Fortunately, no one in my friend’s group remarked that the captain was fit to be tied.
What can I say? In this country, be more careful of your idioms than your insults. You could find yourself in very deep s—t. But that’s one idiom you really don’t want to take literally.
* * *
Tomorrow, the “Stop the Killings” bar tour moves to My Brother’s Mustache, Scout Tuason cor. Scout Madriñan, Quezon City. Noel Cabangon, Chikoy Pura, Isha and Susan Fernandez will be playing. Neither hell nor high water, typhoons nor brownouts, will stop the “Stop the Killings.”
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=25564
After repeated and increasingly strident pleas to the hotel manager for help, they finally got a plumber who, not surprisingly, turned out to be a Filipino. The hotel was full of them, from front desk clerks to cleaning persons. Tagalog and Ilocano words wafted in the lobby and corridors like wisps of cigarette smoke.
The Filipino plumber was in his 40s, and unlike most Filipinos there who were cheerful and eager to please, he was cross. My friends figured he was having a bad day. He banged and emitted low-register grumbling noises while he dredged up the toilet bowl as if to show he didn’t have an easy job but was doing it manfully. When he was almost done, one of my friends, Marlon, struck up a conversation with him—in English. He told him that they were transferring to the topmost floor anyway, but that it was good he was fixing things for the next occupant. He joked that he would be leaving him to the tender mercies of the room’s next “victim.”
The comment sent the plumber through the roof. He replied angrily that the hotel was not in the habit of victimizing customers. Certainly he did not take his duties lightly, the state of the hotel’s plumbing could not be held to reflect on him. Marlon’s roommates came to his rescue, telling the plumber with much amusement that Marlon was just teasing him.
Marlon himself tried to placate him. He told him he was glad that he showed exceptional loyalty to his place of employment, which reflected well on Filipinos. “I know,” he said, “where you’re coming from.”
Instead of appeasing him, Marlon stoked the fires of his fury. The plumber became livid and turned on him wrathfully. Of course, he said, Marlon knew from his accent where he was coming from. He was coming from the Ilocos, and demanded to know why Marlon insisted on insulting his race.
There was no getting him out of it, his mind had locked on to the idea. My friends thought restraint was the better part of valor, and simply let loose an explosion of mirth as soon as he left the room. They laughed their insides out. Till the day I left, we were using the phrase on one another during conversations like a running gag. Each time somebody expressed an opinion about things, we’d say: “I know where you’re coming from.”
My friends “were coming from” various parts of the United States.
I told them I knew of a similar incident that happened to a friend of mine. This wasn’t apocryphal, I said, it really happened.
It was during martial law, and my friend, a journalist, was with an international church-based fact-finding team to investigate the massacre of some villagers in a far-flung area. I forget now which part in Mindanao it was. After visiting the site where the killings took place—the military claimed it was a battle with insurgents; the witnesses, who refused to be named, said it was a summary execution of suspects—my friend’s group hurried off to a nearby camp to dig up more details about the incident. That was risky business then, the provincial commander being lord and master of the countryside, who could summon even the mayor and governor like vassals. During the twilight years of martial law in particular, when this happened, the combat-fatigued and half-crazed officers were the last people you wanted to fraternize with, or posed unpleasant questions to.
My friend’s group was led to a room where they were told to wait for someone who would brief them. A stern-looking young captain came in and said the provincial commander was out, and he was there instead to answer questions. Asked to give the military side, he stuck to the story about an encounter between their men and the local insurgents. When my friend’s group said the wounds of the victims did not seem consistent with an encounter, the captain raised his voice and he said that as far as he was concerned the troops were telling the truth.
My friend asked who led the patrol. The captain answered that he was not in a position to answer that. My friend asked how many soldiers and rebels took part in the firefight. The captain answered that he was not in a position to answer that. My friend asked what he thought of the witnesses’ story that the victims had been rounded up from their houses and dragged away into the fields, from where they later heard shots. The captain answered that he was not in a position to answer that.
In exasperation, my friend said with a tinge of sarcasm: “Well, who is in a position to answer that? Who calls the shots here?”
The captain suddenly grew livid and turned on my friend. “Shots?” he asked angrily, “I didn’t hear any shots. We don’t shoot people here.”
It took some time before they could calm the captain down. But my friend’s comment ended the meeting right there and then. Fortunately, no one in my friend’s group remarked that the captain was fit to be tied.
What can I say? In this country, be more careful of your idioms than your insults. You could find yourself in very deep s—t. But that’s one idiom you really don’t want to take literally.
* * *
Tomorrow, the “Stop the Killings” bar tour moves to My Brother’s Mustache, Scout Tuason cor. Scout Madriñan, Quezon City. Noel Cabangon, Chikoy Pura, Isha and Susan Fernandez will be playing. Neither hell nor high water, typhoons nor brownouts, will stop the “Stop the Killings.”
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=25564
posted by dqfan06 @ 9:16 AM
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