Sorry English: A Shrine to Jun Urbano Reyes and His Works
Sunday, May 22, 2005
He even has a section on SMS Correspondence!
On pages 66-68, Mr Reyes provided a list of sample text messages "to provide a handy reference of suggested sentiments for many occasions."
Here are few examples:
Christmas: "The largest of stocking would never do to hold all my wishes this Christmas for you, all my love on Christmas those whose love has always meant so much to me."
Birthday: "The best of everything to you, today and always."
Confirmation: "You are now a Christian. Congratulations!" (Ummm.... don't you become a Christian when you are baptized, or when you personally accept JC as your Lord and savior?)
Congratulations: "So happy for you. The best really you are!" (Like Yoda the Reyes be...)
Valentine's Day: "All my love who is the dearest of valentines to me today and always."
Why this Blog: As a Filipino engineer working for a Hong Kong accounting firm, there isn't much I can do about the declining English competence among my compatriots. Nor can I hope to single-handedly rescue the Philippine education system from the cesspool that it's in. So instead, I have decided to blog and poke fun at one of the perpetrators of bad English in the Philippines -- Mr Jun Urbano Reyes of Our Lady of Fatima University.
I picked up my wife's copy of "Business Correspondence" by Jun Urbano Reyes, and I laughed so loud it started me blogging. (My wife was given that book to use in the English class she teaches. Instead, she gave the book to me in disgust.)
In his acknowledgments, the good Mr Reyes gave "Special thanks to Mr Giovanni Sy that good looking guy and owner of Merriam Webster whose 'words of wisdom' gave me more confidence to come up with it."
Thank you, too, Mr Sy, for publishing this hilarious book.
What is "Any other else?"
I got the phrase from another great Engrish teacher, Ms C. She was my English teacher in 3rd year high school at Xavier. She'd use the phrase instead of "anything else?", and my friend D and I would keep a running total of the number of times she made this particularly irritating linguistic faux pas.
Click on "Any other else?" to leave a comment on my blog entry.
