Blogging Miles Around the Metro

A few months back, I had seen this cab. I burst out laughing when I saw its name. Here in the Manila, our cabs have names. Generally the name of the operator, in Manila you’ll see the oddest names, which can be basically be anything, from the combined first syllables of the driver’s/owner’s children, to the title of a Bible verse, to just about whatever comes to the driver’s/owner’s mind. I once saw a cab named “Whilsper”, and immediately texted a friend about it. He shot back with something like, “Was the cab driving fast? If so, maybe it can be called ‘Whilsper with wings’” (alluding to a popular brand of sanitary napkins with the so-called wings).

Anyhow, the above taxi is named “Ilandbhoy”. For the uninitiated to the idiosyncrasies of Pinoy speak, “Ilandbhoy” would be pronounced the way you say “Island Boy”. Though it is customary for Filipinos to randomly insert H’s into their names (someone mentioned to me that it was for luck, please don’t ask me how), I don’t understand why there isn’t an S in the word “Iland”. Instead of overanalyzing this detail, I would just like to think that either the name was misspelled, or the guy who lettered it figured with the limited space, he might as well eliminate the seemingly least important letter (which would be the one that doesn’t seem to be pronounced. Why he would choose the S over the H is beyond me).

I found this funny article on Pinoy names here.

Above photo was taken along Kamuning Road in Quezon City. The photographer was trying look as though she was texting with her phone instead of taking a picture. Yelle is going out of town today, and will be back later this week with more stories.

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