News Commentary

'Selfie', 'imba', 'peg' nominated 'word of the year'

Patricia Lourdes Viray - The Philippine Star

September 25, 2014 | 5:45pm

MANILA, Philippines - One of the 13 nominated words will be chosen as word of the year at Sawikaan 2014 on Friday.

Among the nominees are "hashtag", "imba", "selfie" and "peg". The nominated words prevailed Filipino discourse through gaming and technology, television, social media, news and current events for the past year.

The words that were chosen before were canvass (2004), jueteng/huweteng (2005), lobat (2006), miskol (2007), jejemon (2010) and wangwang (2012).

The nominated words this year are:

Bossing

Derived from the word "boss," someone who is in a high position and makes decisions or exercises authority. On the first day of his administration, President Benigno Aquino III declared that his "bossings" are the Filipino people.

CCTV

Acronym for "closed-circuit television" or surveillance cameras. Recent crimes such as the "hulidap" incident on EDSA were investigated through the help of CCTV clips.

Endo

Short for "end of contract." Members of the labor force who are victims of contractualization, most of whom work in shopping malls, are called "Endo" or "end of 5 months contractual employee."

Filipinas

The Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) proposed to revive the use of "Filipinas" from "Pilipinas." However, there is no letter "F" in the Filipino alphabet before so Pilipinas was used, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said.

Hashtag

A word or an unspaced phrase prefixed with the number sign (#), it was first used in social networking site Twitter as an easier way to search tweets and have a common topic for conversation.

Imba

Derived from the word "imbalance," it is mostly used in online games when something is too good or overpowering that makes the game unfair. It is also used as an adjective when you run out of words to describe something.

Kalakal

Literally means "merchandise" or "goods." Filipinos today are fond of selling goods through online shopping sites.

PDAF

An acronym for Priority Development Assistance Fund, it became known when the pork barrel scam broke out wherein the alleged mastermind is Janet Lim-Napoles.

Peg

In Filipino context, it is an expression of taking an inspiration from an ideal person or thing.

Riding-in-tandem

Two persons riding in a motorcycle who commit crime, usually robbery and paid kill. Mandaluyong City recently passed the "no back rider" ordinance to avoid riding-in-tandem crimes. Only first-degree relatives such as parents, children or siblings are allowed to back ride.

Selfie

A self-portrait photograph taken by one's self and uploaded on social media. The person's arms holding the camera can usually be seen which is an indicator that the person took the photo by himself/herself. Cebu City, Makati City and Pasig City are included in Time magazine's 100 cities in the world with most selfies posted online.

Storm Surge

An abnormal rise in sea level caused by winds from a severe cyclone. Super typhoon Yolanda's storm surge produced a 20-feet-high wall of water that severely devastated Tacloban City.

Whistleblower

A person who reveals wrongdoing within an organization to the the public or those in authority. Having revealed Napoles' opertaions, Benhur Luy is the whistleblower in the pork barrel scam.

"Sawikaan 2014: Pagpili ng Salita ng Taon" is organized by the Filipinas Institute of Translation, Inc., in partnership with the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and University of the Philippines College of Arts and Letters.