'Jejemon' chosen as finalist for word of the year
The word âjejemon" has been chosen as finalist for word of the year by a group of academics from the University of Philippines in Diliman. The Filipinas Institute of Translation (FIT) announced on Friday that it has chosen 10 words that had a âstrong influence" on the lives of Filipinos during the past two years. Also in the list of finalists for word of the year are: "Ampatuan," âunli," âload," âtarpo," âsolb," âemo," ânamumutbol," and âOndoy." The winning word of the year will be announced after a two-day national conference to be held on July 29 to 30 at the Bulwagang Rizal in the UP Diliman Campus. In 2007, the word âmiskol" â a localized version of the phrase âmissed call" â was chosen as word of the year. No words of the year were chosen during the past two years because the group believed that no word âdeserved" the title. The etymology of the word âjejemon" was supposed to have started from online users' penchant to type in "hehehe" as "jejeje", either because "Jeje" is derived from Spanish, whose speakers denote the interjection as laughter, or because the letters "h" and "j" are beside each other, and that it is appended by "-mon" that came from the Japanese anime Pokémon, with "-mon" meant as "monster," hence "jeje monsters." - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV