We complain about traffic in
“I didn’t pass through Edsa because I knew it was so traffic.”
“It’s a good time to go to Tagaytay because it is not traffic.”
“Why is it so traffic on a Friday?”
Friends and I have bantered about this and agree that the comments above are quite commonplace. Pause for awhile and think about it. I noticed that we have come to use the word traffic as an adjective describing a condition of vehicular congestion on the road. I’m not sure, but maybe the reason behind this is the way we have adopted it in Filipino as “trapik” for lack of a direct translation. For example:
“Ma-trapik sa Edsa kaya hindi ako dumaan doon.”
“Dapat tayo pumunta ng Tagaytay dahil hindi ma-trapik.”
“Bakit ba ma-trapik kapag Biyernes?”
According to the English dictionary, however, traffic is not a descriptive word but a word that refers to a situation, an event or a movement --- a noun. Therefore, as a noun, it functions like so:
“I didn’t pass through Edsa today because I knew traffic was bad.”
“It’s a good time to go to Tagaytay because there is no traffic.”
“Why is traffic so horrible on a Friday?”
Cheers!
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Speaking of grammar check, there is a good program Grammar Check Anywhere (SpellCheckAnywhere.Net) it adds spell & grammar check to all programs.
ReplyDeleteAs to the excuse that one is late because "traffic eh", there is always traffic on the street---a flow of vehicles. If we are to correctly use the term then, the more appropriate excuse is "There was heavy traffic or slow-moving traffic". :)
ReplyDeleteIt's quite interesting how most people forget how to use the word accurately and consider it the norm :)
ReplyDeleteProbably because language is dynamic and changes occur all the time. The more people speak in a certain way, the more that way is accepted. That's not to say that it's right, though.
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