The broadest band
Planet Earth is such a weird habitat (“It’s a crazy planets” [sic] — movie sexpot) that only hand language retains integrity; all other signifiers change meaning. Evolution does that, it is said.
Take two simple words (in English): “broad” and “band.”
When it first gained usage, “broad” meant wide, vast, ample. Then macho guys of wide currency started calling women “broads” — maybe as an erudite allusion to the barroom rhetoric: “Getting broad in the beam, ey?” That referred to ample girth, of course.
Then there came “broad categories” and “broad support.” Without much detail, it’s just a “broad outline,” meaning to say, in general. If from the boondocks or a ghetto, or as a soundbite specialist of a senator named Miriam, one could also be said to have a “broad accent.”
Only idiots committed crimes in “broad daylight.” Failure of subtlety resulted in dishing out a “broad hint.”
That’s what’s happened to good old “broad” from the Old English bräd, of Germanic origin, related to the Dutch breed and German breit.
It’s broadened its scope, so that now it’s gained compound-word function (it gets combined with other words, that is), as in “Broadway” where Lea Salonga currently holds sway, the better to entertain President GMA, or “broadsheet” — which is what you’re holding up to your face now, to broaden your view.
For its part, “band” started to mean any strip of material that was flat and thin. When holding some wildly independent elements together, it can become a “hairband” — such as what whistle-blower Joey de Venecia might need to wear.
When elastic, it’s a “rubber band.” A “band of gold” came to mean a ring that bonded fiancé and fiancée or spouses together. As well was it a circular piece of metal attached to birds’ legs for purposes of ornithological identification.
But it also soon came to refer to a group of people with a common interest, who banded and bonded together.
When bandits annoyed the landed gentry, they came to be known as a “band of merry men,” especially when attired in tights and led by a charming rogue. When parts of the world engaged in bloody physical confrontation, there developed a “band of brothers.”
Another meaning came into vogue when the world turned electronic, and started listening to radio, first to the AM or Amplitude Modulation and then to the finer FM or Frequency Modulation band. Eventually, sounds were joined by visual images up there in those unseen strata whence sprung communication dissemination, so that for television we had Ultra High Frequency (UHF) and Very High Frequency (VHF) bands to distinguish the strength and placement of particular TV channels.
Listening to radio or watching TV, for the most part we fell prey to music bands, so that these days when you say “band,” that’s what it’s usually understood as referring to, and you just have to note whether it means a hard rock or jazz or hip-hop or bossa nova band.
The word’s origin is of late Old English, also from Old Norse, reinforced in late Middle English by the Old French bande, of Germanic origin, related to “bind.”
A gang, a pack, found itself bound together as a band of robbers or a band of bandits. When led, erstwhile, that is, by someone named Misuari, they could wear identification tags as ARMM bands. When philandering and plundering, a wristband will do.
But now we have “broadbandits” engaged in a public squabble, having learned from the Chinese race a particular feature of civilization — if we’re to believe that senator whose broad and errant accent is typified by her calling an august body she pines for membership in as the “Shoo-preme Court.”
Why, “broadband” has a great chance to be declared the Word of the Year at the next UP Sawikain symposium at Buwan ng Wika in August, to follow “jueteng,” “lobat,” and “miskol.”
Our youth have just been enlightened with a significant addition to their vocabulary. Used to be that what they knew as a broad band was an all-girls’ group like Prettier Than Pink. Or if you’re up-to-date like moi, there are the Blanquitas Latin Trio, Kelt’s Kross, Tribal Fish, Inang Laya, Marmalade, Wake Up Your Seatmate, Death by Tampon, and Nancy Drool (now that’s a good one, er, pun). Prefer your broad band as a foreign act? Try Indigo Girls, The Go-Gos, L7, The Bangles, The Slits, The Allisons, Heart...
Us seniors, we recall The Executives with Ming Ramos as our generation’s board band. If they had been joined by the three divos of government — Fernando (Bayani, not Zobel), Reyes (Angelo, not Chot), and Lina (Joey, not Espina Moore ) — it becomes a bored band. Er, a boring band?
Poet-performer Cesare A.X. Syjuco has his bard band that now gallivants as merry minstrels all over art galleries and university campuses. Some years back, Cesare’s and Jean Marie’s kids formed Faust, a five-piece brat band.
Sigma Rhoan senators Salonga, Enrile,
Translated literally into Pinoyese, broadband becomes Bandang Malapad, maybe doing Bandang Malabon one better, even if without a banduria.
Should Philippine STAR opinion columnist Billy Esposo and man-on-the-street Linggoy Alcuaz ever cast aside whatever ideological differences they may have with First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, and together they formed an instrumental trio to perform sa banda rito, sa banda roon, why, that could be our broadest band.
Now that’s certainly cooler than a red-hot text joke that pinpoints the worst kind of band as someone’s husband.
As for presidential ratings, recent developments may yet revise that favored sing-song dialogue (characteristic of the national language as baby talk) between a lobbyist and an elevator girl, into the following less-than-elegant extension: “Bababa ba? Bababand.”
Ouch. Okay, sorry, very sorry.
