'Jejemon' chosen as finalist for word of the year

The word “jejemon" 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 “strong influence" on the lives of Filipinos during the past two years.

Also in the list of finalists for word of the year are: "Ampatuan," “unli," “load," “tarpo," “solb," “emo," “namumutbol," and “Ondoy."

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 “miskol" — a localized version of the phrase “missed call" — 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 “deserved" the title.

The etymology of the word “jejemon" 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