It had been a while since I watched television. Catching the tail end of yesterday’s early evening news, what got my attention was not Ian King’s coming-out as a transwoman, or the world’s oldest living person possibly a 118-year-old lola from Negros — heck, no, it wasn’t even in the news.
“The idea that you shouldn’t use nouns as verbs,” says Katherine Barber, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, “is possibly the most ridiculous statement about the English language ever made.” However, one does not have to be a grammar Nazi to be struck false by the employment of the word “bar” in the latest San Mig Light commercial.
“Let’s bar!”?!?
Yes, “bar” is both noun and verb. “He was barred from the bar” means that person was restricted from entering an establishment serving liquor. “Bar the door” means to secure said point from entrance (or exit). “Let’s hit the bar” is an invitation to get soused, while “Let’s bar the hit” sounds like a line from a poorly written spy thriller. In any case, “bar”-as-verb is transitive: it needs an object. You bar someone from something, or you bar something with something else. You do not “bar” and just leave it at that. Unless I’m mistaken, and the statement actually refers to a bar named Let’s, in which case it’s a noun.
Nah.
Really now, do you “bar?” Because I’m telling you, it does not sound cool, or make you sound cool. Drop it. Better yet, stick to the dialect. Tagay na!
Thank God i no longer watch TV unless there's a new president taking oath! And having read this, Pare...please help me find my eyeballs. They've rolled so high up they got eaten by gray cells which some commercials obviously can have some use for!
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