Sunday, May 06, 2007

"Brown-out" is universal

I always thought that brown-out was a Pinoy term. Something we made up to refer to black-outs that are temporary or those that do not affect an entire grid. You know, like translucent is to opaque. Pinoys have a penchant for making up terms like that, to cover the in-between.

Brown-out. Parang black-out. Medjo black-out.

But then last night, while watching an American movie, I heard one of the characters use the term. I hit Pause and looked the term up. Apparently "brown-out" is not a made-up Filipinized English word.

Click HERE or HERE and see.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting. I've always thought "brownout" was Filipino English. I actually included it in a comprehensive list of Filipino English words I made for a book project of my linguist-professor in grad school.

Language is always evolving.

Thanks for this, Jona.