English as it should not be spoken…

I’m not sure if it’s only here in Singapore that you hear some people say:

• irregardless
• in actual fact
• ‘overlook’ instead of ‘oversee’
• ‘I’m boring’ instead of ‘I’m bored’
• ‘low morals’ instead of ‘low morale’ (??!!)

And there are some people who can’t make out when to use:

• ‘fetch’ or ’send’
• ‘lend’ or  ’borrow’
• ’see’ or ‘look’
• ‘live’ or ’stay’
• ‘hear’ or ‘listen’
• ‘close’ or ‘closed’

Yeah, yeah, I should provide some examples to show how we should use those pairs of words above.  I’m just too lazy to do that.  Let me know if you need help, yah?

I’m sure the lists above can be longer, but I don’t want to cringe any more than I had, while writing this.  Help me add to the list if you can.  I’ll appreciate that (and you do the cringing)!

Oh, and please stop pronouncing the letter ‘H’ as ‘heige’! 

Urrgghh!!

 

Celebrate dialects!

Lately, there has been a squabble of sorts concerning the death of dialects in Singapore.  It also drew a letter from someone in the Minister Mentor’s office.  This letter included the very strong word, stupid.  Now, this is a word that I have barred Little Guy from using (at least, for now, at this young age).  But I thought that the letter to The Straits Times Forum page need not have to be so emotional and rude.  Here is the stupid (I meant it literally too!)quote:

It would be stupid for any Singapore agency or NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin.

Now, I think this is an over-reaction.  We don’t need people to be learning dialects in schools or other institutions.  What is the harm of screening some movies, drama serials or advertisements in dialect?  It adds to the diversity of our culture.  And dialects have a place here and have to be kept alive.  What better ways than through the media?

I’ve come across kids (and I’m sure you have too) – who ask what that auntie or uncle is saying, why do they sound so strange, etc, etc, and these kids actually laugh at what they hear (but do not understand).  This is a shame, because dialects are not funny and they have to do with these kids’ ancestries.

We need to create awareness and not lose sight of our ancestry, and our dialects are a big part of this.

Would the Minister Mentor and his people be happy if we become effectively bilingual in languages that do not belong to us, and in the process, lose our own languages?

So I say, let’s go out there now, order our food in Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese and whatever dialects we have.  Banter with your kids and friends in dialect – learn different dialects from each other too!

Celebrate our dialects, before we lose them!

 

Tacky messages from the government

I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand to read these slogans:

• Aedes mosquitoes – If they breed, you will bleed
• Drugs – If you play, you pay
• Football Thrills, Smoking Kills (or something like that, from some time back)

Surely the ad agencies can do better?

 

Simple English Test No. 2

Kind of lazy to blog today, after all, it is anniversary day!  And we pigged-out at a buffet lunch.

And since I had Simple English Test No. 1, I should have number 2, right?  I have to emphasize that these ‘tests’ are for Singaporeans only, as I’m picking on mistakes my fellow Singaporeans often make.

Do you:

• say regardless or irregardless?  If the latter, give yourself a hard smack!  Remember the Singapore Pledge that you used to recite in school everyday?  There’s no such word as irregardless, which, in case you haven’t noticed, is double negative.  So stop making me cringe!
• display a Close or Closed sign on the door of your shop?  If your shop is Close on Monday, is it very far away on other days?
• pronounce Dempsey  (as in Dempsey Road) as Demp-sie or Demp-zie?  Jean Danker, please take note, it’s NOT the latter.

Ok for now… I’m off to enjoy the last few hours of this special day!

 

Simple English Test No. 1

I don’t profess to be an English expert but I think I am qualified enough to ‘devise’ this simple test.  To make it relevant, I have picked a few words (and an acronym) commonly used in Singapore, for this test.

Here, say these out loud:

1. ‘H’ as in ‘HDB’
2. ‘red’ as in our ‘little red dot’
3. ‘pizza’ as in ‘Pizza Hut’

Simple?  Now did you say:

1. ‘H’ sounding like ‘heige’ or sounding like ‘eige’?  Listen here.
2. ‘red’ sounding like the past tense of ‘read’?  Listen here.
3. ‘pizza’ as ‘piz-za’ or ‘pit-sa’?  Listen here.

And for the record, it’s ‘an HDB flat’ and not ‘a HDB flat’.  Singaporeans mispronounce many words, thanks to our many incompetent English teachers.

Mispronunciation is not the only problem in our English here.  The usage of words is also a big problem. 

Little Guy who’s in Nursery this year has just started on a literacy programme in school.  This programme includes the reading of a set of books.  Each time he ‘masters’ a book, his teacher will stamp one of those cute cartoon characters on his reading record.

The first time it happened, he came home and said, ‘Look Mum, a chop!’.  Ooooh!  How I cringed!  Obviously that was what his teacher had said, a ‘chop’!

I told him if his teacher ever said that again, ask her if it’s a pork chop or a karate chop…

 

Killer English

Little Guy used to be such a mosquito magnet.  It got me very worried and so I bought several of those anti-mosquito gadgets to try out.  One of these was the MOSQUITO KILLER (yes, that’s how it’s referred to in the instruction manual – in caps).  This gadget contains a fan and a tube of blue light in a plastic casing.  I’m not sure if this thing is effective – I still use it, together with an anti-mosquito citronella repellant.

However, I think if I were to read the instruction manual aloud, thousands of mosquito may just collapse in mid-flight and die.  I almost died of laughter when I read the first few lines under the heading ‘Characteristics (Brief)’:

Fly to the fire is one usual and natural case for insects, the special ray allure in the mosquitoes and flies etc.  To make summary of the experience had found in, and combine the current advanced and physical insects arrest technology, which congregate the light, electricity and air flow technology at the same time, we design and open up this MOSQUITO KILLER, bring you into a no mosquito world.

Insects arrest technology to bring us into a no mosquito world indeed!   Wow! 

There are more hilarious instructions, my favourite are these:

When you use this unit, no body in the room is the suggestion.  Because the people’s smell is much more attractive than the unit…

High building:  The grass mosquito is soft and is tractive by the light much more than the mosquito in the city.  The city mosquito’s quantity is few but strong, can fly to high floor of the building.  These insect in the day and come out to bite people in the evening, not easy to kill (hmm… sort of like vampires?!).  So if you use it in high building, shut down the window is the ask.

I’m the type who hate to read instruction manuals, but this one’s so funny I read every word of it. 

Maybe I should try reading it to the pesky ants I’m trying to get rid of in my kitchen…