One afternoon while having a conference chat with my friends, we somehow got into a discussion on the Filipino "Me" phenomenon. This is a purely-text message (and, gasp, instant messaging!) phenom, which involves using the pronoun "me" in exchange of the grammatically correct "ako." I can understand that sometimes we speak Taglish. I can understand the deletion of letters or using numbers 2 and 8 in instead of a letter or letters or words to either shorten the agony of pressing in a lot of keys or to have longer messages. But to use "me" instead of "ako" is just plain eeeeeck!
"Kain na me." "Dito pa me sa mall." "Stay muna me at home." "Tawagan mo me here sa office." And so on...
Not to mention its equally twisted twin "U" thing.
"Kain na u." "Sundo na u at 8." "Work pa u."
What the???
I don't know if some person who was desperately trying to sound either cute or sossy invented it, but whoever did it, I think has some issues. I first encountered this kind of "me" thing a one or two years ago, and I was totally baffled by it. I thought she was trying to sound cute and all. But then more people started sending me messages that use the "me" thing. I first thought that it was a girl thing. But NO. Even some guy friends of mine did!
Forgive me if I am quite a snoot when it comes to grammar and all, but hey, these are the reasons why the results of surveys and studies show that the youth's grammatical skills, both in English and in Filipino, are deteriorating. Not that my grammar is perfect, but as much as possible I try to correct myself and refrain from speaking in Taglish.
Oh well, people have different tastes in expressing themselves. I just hope it will not come to a point where people will use the letter "h" too so it would be "mhe" instead of "me." Ugh.
The "ME" Phenomenon
2 Comments:
Hmm.. What about the phrase "my bad!"
I can't agree with you more. What's up with that "me" thing. It's as long as "ko" but other people insist on using "me". Weird!
Post a Comment