Of malaprops and diplomacy

I’m sure it has happened to you or someone you know — saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. 

A friend still has to live down a faux pas he made at the wake of a politician.  Approaching the dean man’s bereaved son, he clasped the man’s hand with both of his and said in all solemnity, “Congratulations.”

And, as congratulations go, a person not too familiar with English, used to praise people who accomplished something with “Congrastipation!” thinking she was saying the word correctly.

One of our family stories is about an aunt who ran cafeterias who attended a wake where she approached the grieving widow with what she intended to be words of comfort: “Ganyan lang talaga ang buhay,” she began, “First come, first served.” Spoken like a true caterer.

Another aunt ordered a quiche at a swanky restaurant in New York, calling it “kishey.”

As a child, I was mercilessly teased for referring to a movie as, “Barefoot Contestant.” Those who are old enough know that the title of the film starring Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner was Barefoot Contessa!

My mom liked to watch basketball on TV. She wondered why during halftime, when cheerleaders were dancing to Pump Up The Volume, she asked why they were gyrating while singing, “Who brought the Valium?”

My dad was going home on a bus late one night when a priest he knew well sat beside him and struck up conversation. All the while they were chatting, he was trying to remember the priest’s name. When the bus screeched to a sudden stop, he sat up and, startled, said out loud, “Arroyo!”

Those are funny, embarrassing, but harmless incidents that we end up laughing over as we recall old family stories. But there are occurrences we’d rather forget because they were not only terribly embarrassing but were also probably harmful. It happened to me once in the midst of a tense discussion across a negotiating able. 

The person across was going on and on, recalling the long history of hurts and misunderstanding his group had suffered from government in over 20 years of negotiations. As a peace process veteran, it was, to me, an oft-repeated rant that I had heard countless times. I was bored out of my wits but I sat respectfully, trying to look like I was listening intently while my mind was filling up with thought bubbles on how I wanted to respond to his tirade. I was jet-lagged. It was late. The meeting was going into midnight and we had a plane to catch early the next day. I must have dozed off because all of a sudden, I was awakened by my own voice saying, “Why don’t you just shut up?”

I was totally unaware that I was saying it, but there they were — my very thoughts bouncing on the table, clear as day. They had floated effortlessly from my thought bubble and out of my mouth.

The room was suddenly quiet. Everyone was stunned speechless. I saw the speaker turn beet-red as he faced me, his eyes blazing with anger. The facilitator quickly called a timeout. I was still stunned when the facilitator approached me, eyebrows raised, ready to demand that I apologize. Before he could say anything, I did apologize and promised to do so again to the other group when the session resumed. 

That was the moment I realized I could not be a diplomat. Like my plain-speaking mom, I do not suffer bores and fools very well. While I am quite effective doing backroom work, I was never at ease participating in sensitive negotiations. For one, my face is so transparent everyone can read what’s going on in my mind. 

But I could probably thrive in our present situation where diplomacy is no longer required. Diplomacy, in fact, seems to have been discarded, devalued, like a useless artifact from a more gracious distant past. In the highest levels of leadership, the rule now is anything goes. The Philippines has put the world on notice that its elected leader will bow to no one, and anyone who stands in the way of his problematic vision of a drug-free Philippines will be castigated with his now world-famous way with words, and every other concern (such as mutual defense, investments, OFWs, the peso, and the standing of over 10 million Filipinos who live and work abroad) be damned. Everyone is fair game. 

He makes my unintended undiplomatic outburst that night in Oslo sound like a term of endearment.