Break it to ’em gently

Netnet Camomot .

“HI, I’m Mark Zuckerberg The Director of facebook.”

The Director of facebook? Facebook that starts with a small “f”? With no comma after Zuckerberg? And a “The” with a big “T”?

Of course, you warn the friend who shared it, by breaking it to him gently: “Fake news na.” He replies: “Murag.” Oh, so, they send this to you, hoping you could also tell it’s fake. They need its fakery to be confirmed.

I seldom react to fake-news posts. With my precious time already wasted on video games, where will I find the time to respond? Besides, I know my Facebook friends are simply testing my fake-news radar: Let’s see if she’ll react to this. Hmmm. What I do react to is the weather.

“Feeling hot hot hot.” Summer weather. Phew. That’s why walking in Pinas is hazardous to one’s health—humidity, dust, lack of sidewalks.

Air conditioners, electric fans and the abaniko are working 24/7, hoping to temporarily halt sweat from flowing down below to that part which can also feel hot hot hot with, ahem, the right ambience—no super blue blood moon required.

The Pinoy cannot exactly look forward to autumn after summer. Someone said the weather here is either hot or hotter, much like a couple in the throes of lust, rushing from hot to hotter to hottest. But it’s not Valentine’s, it’s not February. It’s April which began with April Fool’s Day, and right smack in the middle is the deadline for income tax payment on the 15th. Humidity, fools, taxes—what a trio. It’s so hot, you may have to put an air conditioner in the bathroom that’s now morphing into a sauna.

Ever wonder why there’s Juan Tamad? It’s the weather. Well, excuses, excuses. Still, better stay indoors, preferably in an air-conditioned room, as the hot weather persists.

A siesta after lunch is the best way to beat the heat. You can’t work in this weather, you feel the heat bearing down your head. Resume work at 3 pm while sipping iced—remember the Nestea Plunge?—or have some halo-halo at Chowking.

The best antidote for the summer heat, though, is water. Lots and lots of water, sans coliform—drink, bath, shower, swim, dive.

It’s now spring in other parts of the world. A friend, who’s vacationing in New York, said she looked like a mummy—wrapped from head to toe—when they visited Ground Zero because of the cccccold weather there. She’s also staying indoors when there’s no place to visit, to escape from the cold.

Spring comes after winter, thus, Urban Dictionary describes spring cleaning as a “thorough cleaning around the house when winter is over.”

Last month, I mentioned spring cleaning to someone who then asked, Unsa na? I’m guessing she probably had images of springs—from that of cars to bed mattresses—in mind. Springs submerged in bathtubs, springs producing soap bubbles when squeezed, shiny and immaculately clean springs ready for their closeup.

We take for granted that people understand everything we say. Loquacious. Denouement. Anachronous. Some words whose spelling I learned from Norman Lewis’ “Word Power Made Easy.” But their meaning? At least I know loquacious means talkative. I don’t use complicated words since they only lead to one more loss in translation with I, me, myself not grasping what I’m saying. There’s always a simple word to replace the complicated one, and the former will always be easier to digest.

Spring cleaning, though, is already a common term, it doesn’t require a quick and furtive Google search. And then I realize it’s not so common after all. Hey, don’t be guilty for any lack of knowhow in the English department, unless you’re writing in behalf of Malacanang. Usually, only editors care, while the rest of humanity is busy with Facebook, posting unedited and unverified versions of their own fake news. But the grammar police will continue to cringe each time he sees “on December 2017.” His grammatically correct pen will always have the urge to insert an exact date in there, or to replace “on” with “in.” It’s a hard habit to break—he will never recover from it.