Samples/Examples of poor English

[scoopdreams]

Is "NO OUTSIDE FOOD ALLOWED" bad English too?

What exactly is "outside food"? Pls advice.

Danger, Will Robinson!

It's not exactly wise to use "Pls advice." in a thread on bad English, populated with grammar and spelling nazis... WOOPS! I mean, "purists".

That is akin to going into a pig-sty after feeding time, and lying down there - you are just inviting those swines to crap all over you.

I would advise that outside food is exactly what it is, food brought in from outside of the particular restaurant/foodcourt/kopitiam that you are in at the moment. Maybe you will see a couple of 'outsiders' bringing 'outside food' in, and then you will understand.

Then again, you might not take my advice.

 

[yansen84]

And I wager Picasso's Cubism art works would have been labeled as bizarre and ugly by many art 'purists' at the start of the movement. Of course, the same art 'purists' now rank Cubism art pieces with Renoir's Impressionist works at the very top.

Creativity comes from daring to experiment with all forms, not just what you think will be socially acceptable. For example, the uniquely Singaporean phrase of "Bang balls, man!" in one lovely, succint phrase, encapsulates what Queen's English would need to accomplish in quite a few words, "This is so frustrating, and I will have to put up with it."

How many times did Shakespeare wrote spasm-inducing sentences, breaking all rules and structure, before he came up with the lovely prose he is famous for now? What about the line in the Merchant of Venice "between you and I"? Between you and I, that is the correct grammar, and "Between you and me" is the wrong grammar. Between you and I, I refer you to this NY Times post from way back in 1988, that was required reading given to us by our lecturer.

I am not saying we should encourage kids to continue - we should enlighten them on the correct usage of English, but not FORCE all the pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, enunciations, etc etc into their throats, and slap them silly when they do things differently.

Most importantly, what is not acceptable now, very well could be acceptable a few decades later. What is acceptable now, very well could be plain outright bizarre a few decades later too. For example, I said "That's totally lame." to the young daughter of a friend, who promptly looked me up and down a few times as if I am a weirdo, and said "It's called lay-moh now, uncle Kelvin."

I grinned, and said "Ah yes, I stand corrected. That's totally lay-moh."

It is now part of my everyday vernacular, and my friends are picking it up fast, because it's so catchy. You, dear sir, are lay-moh.

Fair enough. May I add that you write well indeed.

I do not necessarily disagree with your points made, in fact I agree that creativity is imperative towards a language's existence. I bemoan the very fact that a great many of our youngsters cannot write like you do. Sentence structures are simplistic, vocabulary is embarrassingly limited, and whole pieces of work make comical reading. Sometimes the ideas behind the writing are pretty decent, yet they are not given a chance behind the ugly facade of poor writing.

Your examples of Shakespeare and Picasso draw on accomplished individuals; admittedly I say this with the benefit of hindsight, yet I cannot see how this is going to be the case for 'creativity' as defined by our youngsters who continually corrupt what was a beautiful language out of convenience, poor foundations and without any deliberate purpose of creativity. Surely you don't classify our young friend's 'lay-moh' as a product of creativity, do you?

I realise that while we agree on creativity, this ends at different levels. To me, the George Orwell work 'Animal Farm' was a great creative expression of satire; your young friend's corruption of words is definitely not.

P.S Do you realize that your opening phrase "I beg to differ.", while being standard Queen's English, is very weird when you look closely at it? Why do you beg? Why not just say "I see things differently." or "I have a different point of view." Are you accepting me as your overlord? Or are you truly a beggar in profession? Do you hold your paws together? And have you given me a chance to say "No, I'm not accepting your beg." If you look at it even closer, is it grammatically sound? Shouldn't it be "I am begging to differ."? What is English, if not clay to be molded in the hands of children, so all kinds of delight can come out of it?

Rest assured I am no beggar; neither do I want to prostrate in front of you. This is a good case in the point I was trying to make in the earlier paragraph about usage of English. Granted, your suggestions get the point across, but if language is just plain communication and nothing else, we would all lose something valuable. "I am begging to differ." sounds like something which would have been said by that Sikh guy in 'Mind Your Language'! And while you're at it, why didn't you suggest 'Huh really meh? I don't think so leh!'? :p

P.P.S Some enlightened circles recognize the term "purist", when someone uses it, as the same as saying "I am an inflexible a-hole who have nothing better to do in life but to gripe about things I am unfamiliar with."

Sir, thanks for your compliment. I may be no expert or authority on the English language, but I look upon people who routinely corrupt it with disdain, and it doesn't take much to spot such offenders in this country where such acts are commonplace.

 

[Balls2U]

Nothing beats this : "THANK YOU YOU!!!"

I heard one of my staff (one aunty) saying this over the phone to customers almost everyday! Told her off many times, but yet she still does it. Really feel like sacking her as she is spoiling the image of the company!

 

[yansen84]

It's not exactly wise to use "Pls advice." in a thread on bad English, populated with grammar and spelling nazis... WOOPS! I mean, "purists".

Sir, your efforts at sarcasm are indeed laudable. Then again this is so typical of certain forummers in this forum isn't it - that one can't have a gentlemanly debate without getting flamed? Dare I say a manifestation of the single-party rule that limits dissent, opposing views and ideologies? Hmm

 

[scoopdreams]

To yansen84,

Firstly, I would like to apologize if I came across as harsh or satirical on your opinions... am working on some ad copy now and usually I am in that kind of mode. I sincerely seek your forgiveness.

What you are addressing currently, is the lack of quality English education in our system. Kids spend 2 hours a day in English classes, with barely qualified teachers, and the rest of the day in the company of English-As-She-Is-Spoke peers, parents, guardians, and weird dreams In Chinese With English Subtitles. [FONT=&quot]Y.E.S. 93.3FM 究竟还是新加坡最受欢迎的广播电台[/FONT] should say something about where our language roots lie predominantly still.

Even though our leaders might bray loudly about how we are one of the best amongst Asian countries for our English capabilities, the sad fact remains that we are still, after all, an Asian country. It's no glory to be best amongst the worst. And when our leaders, supposedly the best our nation can offer, speaks on the tube, I want to tear my ears out (fortunately, TV has the mute function). If our leaders can be as such, even more so us mortals of less-than-$50,000-per-annum yoke.

While the nation and her people treads the rocky roads towards defining an identity and culture, we will see a mishmash of cultures, languages, ideas, trends, etc. The state of our language, not just English, but all languages in Singapore, is what we could call, bastardized, precisely because we are still trying to find ourselves. It's like a pre-teen who's going through severe identity crisis, interesting, yet painful to watch.

I don't think even myself could live long enough to see Singaporeans speaking really good English, and even though I would love it if Singaporeans command a strong flair for the spoken and the written, in accordance to the language's original heritage, a niggling thought remains at the back of my mind:

What if we truly eked out a unique culture of our own, precisely because we did not follow the original conventions of the various languages, and by association, traditions of other countries? What would an unfettered Singapore be like? Will it sprout wings and take flight to different heavens, or plummet to darker, undiscovered abysses?

And that, my good yansen84, is a question that can only remain speculative for now, but I'm always curious about that potential possibility.

 

[scroobal]

I am with you on Queen's English at least on treating it as the main framework of language use.

Like many things in life, its horses for causes. One should be able to adapt to the environment, the people that are being engaged in conversation with without patronising them and to keep that conversation meaingful at any level.

The thing that irks us most I suspect is the wrong usage of words, terms, and sentences at all levels - from the corporate/literary high brow level to a hawker centre conversation.

My pet peeve is listening to a conversation by an SPG trying to emulate her foreign partner in a local setting and with a local. One does not know whether to cry, laugh or piss in one's pants.

Fair enough. May I add that you write well indeed.

 

[scroobal]

Interesting to see both Yansen and you waxing lyricals or is it words in a forum such as this. Nothing else can beat our fragile human ego.

To yansen84,

.

 

[SIFU]

some some siow char bor said good grammer = can think logically

 

[yinyang]

some some siow char bor said good grammer = can think logically

So does that mean those with lousy grammar are duffers? Or worse, warped minds? Or fuzzy logic? :p

 

[littlefish]

among (I gave $10 to be divided among our son and daughter -- 2)
amongst (my father left $10,000 to be shared amongst my mother, my sister and my siblings)

"Among" and "amongst" can be used interchangeably. Your first example is also wrong, as it should read "I gave $10 to be divided between our son and daughter". Among/amongst is used for entities (may refer to both groups and individuals) numbering more than 2.

But I think in everyday life, nobody will really care about such correct usage as long as they understand what you were trying to say and your sentence structure is basically right.

 

[jw5]

Nothing beats this : "THANK YOU YOU!!!"

I heard one of my staff (one aunty) saying this over the phone to customers almost everyday! Told her off many times, but yet she still does it. Really feel like sacking her as she is spoiling the image of the company!

Perhaps she simply has the habit of repeating the last word at the end of a sentence.
I had a teacher once who always did this, he would end every sentence by repeating the last word.
I also knew someone who had the habit of putting an "s" at the end of every few words.

 

[i_am_belle]

I had a teacher once who always did this, he would end every sentence by repeating the last word.

u sure u werent hearing echos ? chos ...

 

[Papsmearer]

The problem is that Sinkies think they are an English speaking population. They don`t realise that for real native english speakers, their Singlish is hard to decypher. They have so much slang, pidgin, and non english words mixed into a sentence that it might as well be a foreign language to an outsider. e.g. Alamak, like this also how can. OR Wah lau eh, why this one like this, ah. As the years go by, Singlish and mainstream English become more and more different. The day will arrive when Singlish is no longer considered English with an accent, but an entirely different language altogether. I give this another 2 generations to happen. If you listen in to a call centre in bangalore, u will see that their standard of english is far superior to S`pore`s. Some of the The staff is so well trained that its hard to differentiate them as non native english speaker. On the other hand, if a call centre were to be located in S`pore catering to the North American clients, they would not be understood at all. The S`pore education system has failed abysmally in teaching proper english pronunciation and sentence structure, and to eradicate Singlish in the classroom. I see this as a major problem in the near future. The day is approaching where a Filipino speaking english is easier to understand than a Sinkie speaking singlish.

 

[SamuelStalin]

- fishes (different species of fish)

Our Resident Sam would remind you there is only fish. No such word called "fishes".

 

[SamuelStalin]

Imported from the US again, just like 'totally' (originated by Jennifer Aniston in Friends).

"Like" is nice if it is used by well-educated Sporn girls which can speak good English too, but not too much because one side of their faces would become very red.

 

[SamuelStalin]

Q. Who do you think will win?
A. Actually I think it will be Taufik.

Actually if there is a reason and one backing (the statement that favors) Taufik assuming he is the unlikely, the underdog in the contest then I see nothing wrong with it.

 

[SamuelStalin]

We have been taught not to start a sentence with "but" and "and". But English is evolving. And they are perfectly alright for emphasis.

Other modern changes include:
"Mr. Aso will visit the Chinese officials Monday." (the word "on" is now omitted)

"For four years he was in the employ of JG Enterprises." (what happened to the word "employment"?)

 

[SamuelStalin]

i cook myself,i eat myself

Self-cannibalism. If only all my enemies real or imagined would die this way. Better for them.

 

[yansen84]

What if we truly eked out a unique culture of our own, precisely because we did not follow the original conventions of the various languages, and by association, traditions of other countries? What would an unfettered Singapore be like? Will it sprout wings and take flight to different heavens, or plummet to darker, undiscovered abysses?

And that, my good yansen84, is a question that can only remain speculative for now, but I'm always curious about that potential possibility.

Sir, no worries, it was just a mindless rant in the middle of the night.

My two cents worth: This vision of yours, however well-intentioned, appears to me to be the wrong path our youths should follow. Not putting you down, but the fact remains, where the Chinese are concerned at least, that we've had English and Mandarin forced down our throats by those very leaders you alluded to. Where it comes to preservation of our original languages (dialects), I fear it's too late to reverse the damage already done. English and Mandarin are beneficial to us in the future anyway, so why not strive to be competent in both? Competent not in a rojak fashion, but mastering both as independent languages.

Of course, if we could be able to do that while continuing to speak Singlish in the heartlands, why not? From the looks of it, the chance of that is close to nought. Some people are able to do it, but it's a definite fact that Singlish hinders proper English expression, innumerable examples of this we've seen in this thread. I'm definitely with you on carving out a unique language of our own, but we shouldn't do ourselves injustice by compensating from a language in which we've always enjoyed an advantage over our peers, as you say.

You make a good point on the English education, or lack thereof, in our system. Perhaps it is time for serious reform.

 

[yansen84]

My pet peeve is listening to a conversation by an SPG trying to emulate her foreign partner in a local setting and with a local. One does not know whether to cry, laugh or piss in one's pants.

LOL, one of mine too Sir. And does anyone notice, they ALWAYS seem to do it with this irritating American accent, the kind peppered with lots of 'like's and rising intonations?? Mindless bitches who never fail to make me cringe.