Go on, jejemon

A man was found inside a sack with a bullet wound on his head, and GMA7 news reported he is a victim of summary execution.
TV5 news, reporting about a raging fire in Pasay, said the fire quickly spread because the houses of the informal settlers were made of light materials.

Summary execution instead of “salvaging.” Informal settlers instead of “squatters.” Very nice, a little political correctness won’t hurt.

Meanwhile, DepEd is waging war against jeje-speak.

“What’s alarming is these misspelled words have found their way into academic requirements like essays,” according to DepEd spokesperson Jonathan Malaya.
“We got reports from teachers that even high school students use these spellings in their compositions,” he said.
This has resulted in students getting failing marks in reading, writing and comprehension skills, the DepEd said.

Really? Really really? Wow. I was into the whole “it doesn’t hurt anyone, kids are just creating their own form of expression” argument, but if this is true, IF the report is true, then it changes everything.

I don’t believe it though. If a student indeed used it for a report, I think it was meant as a joke. Malakas lang ang loob siguro talaga nung bata. Which is not entirely a bad thing. Having their own identity is supposed to be a good thing, right?

Hippies had their own thing going in the 60’s. (“Dude,” kung wala masyado “happening” dito, “split” na tayo ha?) Black people speak to each other in ways only they can comprehend. “That was sick!” turned out to be good, and being called “Dog” (or “Dawg”) is “cool” and “chill”, and these expressions have become mainstream and acceptable. Our parents were “jeproks” then, adapting it from the western “projects”, and they inverted syllables (re-pa, erap, to-dits, nosi ba lasi, dehins), and corrupted word meanings (how peeing came to be known as “jingle” or “dyingel” is beyond me), and yet they turned out OK and these words are now part of everyday conversations, we do not even notice it anymore.

I am not saying that “jejespeak” and “jejemons” are here to stay, or will form part of the future of our dialect. What I am putting out is that it is just a fad, another way for our kids to feel they belong to a group or a clique. And fads go either of two routes … it fades away naturally, or it transcends time and goes mainstream. I am betting (and hoping) this will just go away in time. But by giving “jejespeak” the attention we are giving it now, we are just extending its lifespan.

I say let kids be kids. Relax, chill.