You can call me Betty

“Mr. Beerbelly, Beerbelly…
With some roly-poly bat-faced girl” Paul Simon, “You Can Call me Al”

If my brother eggs me again about talent, I now come prepared: Name-calling, isn’t that daft?

This “talent” comes in 2 forms, the literal and the literary. For the literal, terms of endearment are coined. For example, with PolSci students, Dexter is Yummy, self-explanatory; Fernando is Tatang for being earnest, grim, and determined; Edson is Supsup or being the 1st Supremo of the revitalized Politikons, a title I subtly pushed to be adopted. Me and subtlety, a perfect match.

Then an Accounting student was re-baptized “X” for his disdain of x-rated movies and when asked how many x-rated movies he has viewed – none! Assailed him for disliking something he hasn’t tasted. A fine boy, X.

Among the Management majors, Miguel became SS, for sex symbol, again, self-explanatory. Ryan Bel was BF for “big fella”. For days, nobody called him BF except moi and then I noticed everyone was calling him BF and I felt quite smug that the name stuck only to find out BF now stood for “big fig.” My bad, my bad. Didn’t consider that students are much more inventive than their teachers.

Years later, bumped into BF in the vicinity of Pasong Tamo. He didn’t seem to mind still being called BF despite his major downsizing. Now I wonder what my students called me behind my back – the Ugly One?

Now the more important aspect of name-calling is something PolSci grooms you for. Prof ES, for instance, would say “that pineapple-faced, what’s-his-name,” referring to Noriega, Panama’s former (p)resident-tyrant. “Those Bible-hating Commies” or “that sour-faced founder of the CCP” and the list goes on and when cornered, Prof ES would douse off with her much-cherished mantra “Everything is a state of mind just like a doughnut. If there’s no hole in the middle, it’s no longer a doughnut.” Huh?!

PolSci opens you to a lot of frustrations or as A. Camus in “The Stranger” perfectly captures, “I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe.” The malevolence of humans, the powerlessness of politics, the futility of action – all these provoked a violence in our language, I guess. I have yet to meet a PolSci major who isn’t a good cusser.

You cannot run amuck with a bayonet, you’re forced to express your violence in cussing and name-calling. In tacit agreement, the classroom climate did not discourage. We were not gagged or reprimanded for irresponsibly saying “our baog nga congressman” or “our adik nga senador” or “that premature ejaculator councilor”. Slanderous, slanderous! The anarchy in language was healthy, I think, because now that I’m much older, I take conscious pain curbing my language.

In the activist circle, not a day passed without a difference of viewpoints. Looking back, it wasn’t really imagination that won arguments or debate points but boldness in name-calling.

If I wanted to wrap and nail a touchy discussion to my favor, I would begin attacking, “Waso ka man” or “Padla man it nga ideya, maski lurong mariwa” or any line of this tone.

If they don’t work, I use my last card – “Piyos ka man.” For whatever reason, it’s an effective shut-up line, I don’t know. Maybe, because men feel emasculated by such remark or they simply don’t have a rebuttal for that. What in God’s country is a female counterpart of “piyos”?

“Piyos,” the most effective name-calling there is.