Sunday, December 21, 2008

WHAT’S IN A NAME ? - Part 1 of 13

I received a few requests for this article, and fortunately found out I do have an electronic copy ( I don't know why). It will be posted in this blog in several parts due to its length. I however chose to place the original footnote as a prologue.
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FOOTNOTE: This is an unfinished draft by RSN, MQV, JIN, RJR, RGC, JYS, TLM assisted by VMB. It was initially attempted in 1986, redrafted in 1992, updated in 1996, and redrafted again in 2002 and 2003. After several on-and-off attempts, the writers concluded that because of its inherent creative nature, this feature article can never be truly finalized by them. It is therefore expected that every reader from the NSC “alumni association” will have something to add, concoct, embellish, delete or otherwise revise versus what was written into this unfinished draft. After reading properly (in compliance with the warning), the reader is invited to try his own skill in creative writing that has been demonstrated (adequately, we hope) by the writers. This way, we could stimulate your minds into recalling those times when we all worked together so hard and so productively and, thereby, enjoyed every minute of it. In so doing, we hope to reassure each other that ….…. YES, WE REMEMBER.

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What's In A Name?
(With apologies to Shakespeare and the NSC people)

After 22 years of discussions on organization, people, job evaluations and performance appraisals, so many names still ring in our ears and swim in our heads. Submitting to the propensity for levity even when dealing with the most serious of subject matters, allow us to introduce a bunch of wonderful people with wonder-full names. These gals and guys were in the corporate picture (Iligan, Pasig, Makati, Port Area, Cebu) thru all those years -- the good and the bad, the happy and the sad, whether sober or mad -- as NSC went from STEEL (definitely) to STEAL (allegedly) to STILL (temporarily).


WARNING: This is creative writing that does not belong to any particular literary category. Neither is this type of writing taught in any school, college, institute or university. Correspondingly, creative writing requires imaginative reading, i.e. read with your mind rather than with only your eyes. It may even be necessary to read this feature article slowly, with full concentration, amidst peaceful and quiet surroundings, pronouncing and enunciating each name silently, recognizing that NSC people communicated with each other in three basic languages that have their own phonetic uniqueness. If you can’t comply with these conditions, please stop reading at this point and try again some other time. On the other hand, if you are ready to satisfy said conditions, you may proceed and read on. And have some fun.

Anong pang-ALLAN mo? If you ask them this question, you are likely to hear such oddities as HOSPICIO (where he was born), EXPEDITO (hurriedly), SOCRATES (philosophical Greek), DEMOSTHENES (oratorical Greek), ULYSSES (warrior Greek), THESSELONICA (geographic Greek), PERSEUS (mythological origin), FLEUR DE LIZ (cultured French), VOLTAIRE (revolutionary French), CYRIL (probably Roman-Italian), GIOVANNI (stylish Italian), VITO (Sicilian Don’s disapproval), SAMITA (perhaps Hebrew), MILOR (with Slovakian slant), WENDELL (has English-Irish ring to it), NELSON (same comment), SEAN (Scottish Connery), HELDRITH (no comment), LILIUS (don’t know), SYLVIO (don’t know either), ERICSON (makes cellphones?), GLENMOORE (makes shoes?), MAXILINDO (something big), JEZEBEL (sounds fishy), WEBSTER (used the wrong book), etc.

At the Training Center, you will meet guys with the appropriate names MAGLINAO (to shed light) and SILAO (too much light). Also there is GALVAN (expert on GI sheets) who should recruit ACERO (for iron-making technologies), BANGCAL (for steel-making processes), ROLLON (for hot and cold-rolling operations), TINOY (for tinplate production), TINGCANG (for making tin cans), FABRICANTE (for fabrication usages), RUSTY (for anti-corrosion techniques), PRIMACIO (for increasing prime yields) and CAHOY (for promoting the “save the trees, use steel” campaign). ALAMIN (kindly get educated), ISIP (please think always) and BASA (please read a lot) should volunteer to join them, together with AGURO (someone who teaches) and LEYSON (something to teach). If you want something really really basic, SALAS and BATAC can collaborate to take you back to your PEPE AND PILAR primer. ARIZABAL and LILIBETH can also retrain you on your AVA-CADA. Clem will ensure you are always GRAMATICA-ly correct. Courses in arithmetic can be provided by the group of ISAGANI-DOSDOS-ALTRES-MANAPAT-CINCO-CALPITO-QUIOCHO-NINA-
DIEZ-PONCE-FORTINEZ
assisted by DIVIDINA for division and REDOBLE for multiplication. Every now and then, PAGKALINAWAN and PAGLINAWAN can do counseling work for confused trainees.

1 comment:

  1. "What's in a name?" Yes, there's lots to it. For a Pinoy, mine is kind of unique - ERVIN. It is English in origin and would mean - boar friend; green river; or friend of the sea.
    From what I know, not many people are named "Ervin". It's not a very popular name. BTW, it could even be a surname.
    The name Ervin, is the 28502nd most popular baby name at Mybaby-name.com placing it in the top 40% of names by popularity.
    In the year year (2006), Ervin was the 7139th most popular name, and is in the top 36% for the year.
    In the year year (2007), Ervin was the 2580th most popular name, and is in the top 4% for the year.
    My Mom then was expecting a baby girl because of the physical retroactions she was experiencing during her pregnancy. (Ultrasound technology was invented on the same I year that I was born.) She wanted to name her baby - "IVY", for its brevity and uniqueness.
    As it turned out, it was a boy! Hence, the nearest variant for a boy's name was ERVIN.
    As to my last name, I don't know whether it has a Spanish origin. Some say it sounds like Greek.

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