Terminal Terms

For those of you who might be reading this from a foreign country or from another planet, we have just celebrated a special event in our nation's history several days ago. The event was the phenomenal People Power Revolt wherein an overstaying leader was overthrown through bloodless means.

Traditionally, the occasion was marked by a street party on historic EDSA where the life-changing revolution took place. This naturally called for the declaration of a special holiday all across the country.

This brings me to the heart of this blog. For this year, the day was declared as not a working holiday. The term was rather vague, so to the ordinary man, it can only be assumed that it was a working holiday.

Now, the term 'working holiday' is also somewhat vague, if not a contradiction of terms. When one says holiday, it obviously means there is no work; thus, if there is work, then it simply means it's not a holiday. So why come up with such a mind-boggling term such as a 'working holiday'?

There is also the 'non-working holiday' phrase. This is likewise a contradiction of terms. As I stated from above, a holiday infers there is no work, so why does one need to say 'non-working holiday'? There has to be some form of redundancy here somewhere.

This is not really a matter for experts to discuss. Even the ordinary college graduate can distinguish that non-working and holiday need not go hand-in-hand.

Why do we have this penchant for making simple things extremely complicated? Just like at EDSA 25 years ago, let's make everything clear and simple, and not go into the complexities of keeping things beyond the comprehension of the ordinary man.