Dangling with the Modifiers

By Emmanuelle

If it’s you they’re talking about, you are a noun. Ano? Not ano, dear, though you are answerable to the question ano. As a noun, you may be as atrociously ordinarily common as the rest of us; or you may be as primly proper as the stiff-lipped maiden who starts each day with a capital letter yet. 

If they do not want you to know it’s you they are talking about, or if they finally pulled together the oomph to identify you as a bore and thus, rate you once a mention only, and rank all the rest of you as too personal, too compound, either too indefinite or demonstrative or interrogative, or the nearest relative to a cause, clause pala (hingal! )– then you are a pronoun. No, not a noun given freely as in pro bono noun; not even a noun turned professional as in tennis pro. Just a noun’s timid, but more visible replacement – always popping here, there and everywhere.

If you keep telling everybody your state of being (or state of not being as in GMA’s last SONA) or you keep announcing what’s happening every minute of the day, you are a very talkative bird. You are also a verb. On the other hand, you are the most important word around, and if you manage yourself properly, your grammar and your usage problems will all be solved, regardless of your manners and your smell. You may yet land a high-paying job (with insecure tenure, pero!) in any of the call centers dotting the environment with whiffs of British or Americanized accents breathed through definitely very Filipino nostrils. 

Ah, and when you choose to rely not only on your old, reliable friends, but on your imagination to describe, limit or qualify what you mean that your point of view may be expressed more fully in a clearer and more definite way (hingal again!) – you are a modifier.   

This, my friends, is this writer’s world. Dabbling, dipping, experimenting, playing with the modifiers. Even idling around, flopping on shallow or deep waters, hanging, dangling with the whole lot of them. Incomparative, superlative experience! The adjectives and the adverbs sprout on nastily conjured or beautifully inspired wings, sometimes started off on their merry way by the articles, and nothing can be more definite or indefinite than those. Remember though: it’s the sound not the spelling that makes the difference! And if these graces were not enough, let the verbals rain on! Mind you, verbal abuse not meant here, but the shower of infinitives, participles and gerunds that kept crisscrossing identities, classifications and functions!

Am pulling your tail, haven’t you noticed this yet? And making puns of you all.

And last Saturday, I touched gold! Not my gold though. And not the genuine flecks pretending to be just gleaming dust on hard rock; not even the polish of processed yellow passed off as overpriced carrats.

Gold, as in Sunday Punch touching, shimmering for a while, then gliding past the milestone of fifty years. Punching all the way. 

The publisher-editor had said it all. To say more is to add gloat to the moat of humble impenetrability that had always surrounded our paper castle overlooking the crossing of two rivers at A.B. Fernandez – one where humanity surges and the other where dull-colored water flows.  

There was no parade, no blaring announcements; just quiet greetings from old and new friends. And a not so quiet Saturday afternoon with the staff.

This writer got to occupy two seats – one with the boys beside the boss for the main course; one with the girls for the sweets. Gerry Garcia watched over us all with his very fatherly presence. Ermin Garcia Jr., Al Mendoza, Jun Velasco and guests raised their glasses in endless toasts; though Jun took time off to dedicate his first and only song to Emmanuelle, thanks. Ding Micua, On-line admi Julie Ann Arrogante, Agri Sosimo Pablico and cyclist Jesus Garcia bared benevolent smiles over the childish outpourings from the obviously adult staff. Eva Visperas and best friend Helen Bernardo, Cesar Ramirez, Joy dela Cruz, Analiza Leyba, Cora Bañez and Rhoda Tuliao of Citi-World Travel Mart, Rod Ibasan and Rolly Dioquino sang their hearts out and throats sore while doing their version of dirty dancing. Photographer Butch Oca managed to grab the microphone in-between camera shots. All the while, Andy Estrada took care of his precious guest, his child.

Hang on, hang tight. We’ll never see fifty again; next year, we are fifty one.

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