[QUOTE=Cunning Stunt;1152102]Hahaha. I really laughed when I read this. You and I ought to get together RK and become founder members of the Philippine branch of 'Grumpy Old Geezers'.[/QUOTE]My favorite, and I've probably posted about it before, are the signs at queues at store counters, government offices, and the like, that say "fall in line." Do you mean, get in line but fall down? I assume they mean they want customers to form a line and get waited on in order. So "fall in line" obviously isn't common English usage -- except maybe in the military. I've asked older Filipinos for their recollection of where the expression came from. Nobody remembers. So I've always assumed it may have rubbed off from the influence of US military occupying the country after WWII. Fall in line is military parlance for "line up, you limp dicks." So I have suggested to some Filipinos that maybe it originated with American military people handing out food or supplies or whatever and simply barking out their own command to Filipinos. I've gotten a few affirmative shrugs and nobody rejecting the explanation.
But the real joke is that in the Philippines a sign that says "fall in line" will invariably be ignored. Just try following those instructions in the back area where medicines are sold in a Mercury Drugs or Watsons drugs, for example. There will be three or four sales clerks taking customers' requests, running down the medicine from the shelves, taking payment to the cashier, and then bringing change and the meds. But the lines get long sometimes, and Filipinos, or more specifically, Filipinas, aren't good at waiting. So it always happens that you're next in line or second in line, and some woman comes around the line to start a new one and angle in on one of the few sales clerks. I presume there's an excuse, like "I was just wondering if you have 'such and such" medicine," or "I can't wait because na-na-na-na-na." And the clerks seem to lack any inclination to tell the line bucker to wait in line like everybody else. So it easily becomes a self-reinforcing dysfunction. Why wait in line when you remember that last time somebody else beat the system by just bucking the line?
It's essentially the same as the principal rule of traffic right-of-way in the Philippines: whoever gets the nose of their vehicle ahead of the other guys has right of way. It's hilarious to watch on EDSA. Four or five lanes painted on the roadway, but nobody follows them. Everybody is switching lanes and maneuvering ahead of the next guy under the false impression that they're going to get to their destination faster. But what happens is that all the lane switching invariably sets up a continuous accordian effect so that everybody is collectively slowed down. I point out to my Filipino friends that the society suffers from a massive "collective action problem," and when I use the EDSA traffic metaphor, they just chuckle in agreement.
But, having acknowledged the mess, I am going to argue that it has its upside: nobody takes things too seriously, like being on time for meetings, for example. And where else can you find such a laid back approach to pay-for-play sex that a short time can run anywhere from two to four hours and, for guys capable of delivering the goods, multiple pops? In the states pay-for-play runs on a 50 minute hour. That means pushing you out after 50 minutes or after the first pop, whichever happens first, to make room for the guy whose appointment starts at the top of the next hour. I can't imagine Europe, where you can set your watch by the train operations, is any different.
