Sorry English: A Shrine to Jun Urbano Reyes and His Works
Thursday, May 19, 2005
What does this mean?
"Adjustment complaints can be viewed as an opportunity to satisfy a customer who can be temporarily to dissatisfied and thereby make probable continued pleasant relations."
-- Business Correspondence, p. 23
To be honest, I didn't know what an "adjustment complaint" was, so I searched the web and found these definitions:
complaint letters -- request compensation for problems with purchases or services
adjustment letters -- responses to complaint letters.
OK, so those definitions were clear., and Mr. Reyes was probably referring to an adjustment letter. But I couldn't find the specific phrase "adjustment complaint" anywhere.
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.
