The Right Word at the Right Time

This is an encyclopedia of English by Readers' Digest which I have won in a Stomp's English contest a couple of months ago.

By encyclopedia, you can already imagine the thickness of the book. It looks somewhat like a dictionary as well as it lists words from a to z - no pictures, with font size of about 10-11 and each page is separated into 2 columns. Erm, it is not exactly easy reading because reading it is tantamount to reading disctionary with meanings and phonics.

Since it is not easy reading and in order not to tax my degenerating brain power too much, I try to read only 1 to 2 paragraphs on some nights. Hopefully, these grammatical rules and vocabulary will be absorbed so that my English standard can show some signs of improving from its current rather dire state.

The first rule that I read about is on the use of articles - whether it should be "a" or "an". If you are sniggering behind my back now and wondering why I even bother wasting my time on a rule which a primary school child can rattle off the back of their hand, you will certainly fall off your chair if I confess how enlightened I have been from this precious paragraph. Well, actually it is more like a 2-page write-up on this, so you can imagine the importance of this.

Raise up your hand.

How many of you think or have been taught that "an" is to be used in front of words starting with vowels (ie "a", "e", "i", "o", "u") and the rest "a"?

If you are fully cognisant of the nuances in "a" and "an", I applaud the success of your grammar teacher as well as your proficiency in the English language. For the rest who are completely oblivious to the correct grammar and presume than "an" is to be used with words starting with vowels, allow me 5 minutes to summarise what I have learnt from THE book.

"An" is to be used in front of words with vowel-sounding first syllable regardless of how it is spelt. Hence, we should use "an" with "honour" because "honour" sounds like starting with "O". We should NOT use "a" simply because "honour" is spelt with a "h".

Of course, there are more rules but I am still in the first few pages of "A". You see, once you read a paragraph, you must ponder about it before understanding, so a page takes longer to read than a simple novel. I will certainly work harder to do more reading and understanding. Hopefully, the next time you read my entries, you will see some (I will refrain from saying "marked" and setting too high an expectation for myself) improvements in my writing, especially with respect to the grammar.

Let me continue with my journey of English "upgrade" for now. Till then, please forgive me for any grammatical boo-boo.

Demise of Proper English

Has Singlish's filtration into English finally resulted in Singlish becoming the mainstream? Is the triumph of Singlish signified that the demise of proper English?

It is no doubt that Singlish has become part of Singapore culture and a way of life. It is increasingly harder not to punctuate our sentences with 'lah', 'loh', 'meh'. Where such sound-words used to add more 'colour' and distinction to the Singaporean communication, these were one of the main stumbling blocks for Singaporeans to speak proper English - English that would be understood and respected by the rest of the world instead of only by Singapore.

However, the greater stumbling block of proper English seemed not to arise from such sound-words but more from our sentence structure and grammar. How often do we use "How come you are here?" rather than "Why are you here?"? How often do we add a question mark to a sentence and use this loosely as a question, "You do not know?" instead of "Don't you know?".

Speaking good English does not mean speaking with a different accent but more of using the correct words and adopting proper grammar in sentences. Proper vocabulary and grammar take long practices and are essential for non-Singaporeans to understand our English.

When Today featured a column commenting the death of the proper English, perhaps it was yet again to highlight the degenerating of Singaporeans' English standard and calling for more attention to be paid to rectify the way that Singaporeans are writing and speaking in Singlish even in formal occasions. Much as Singlish among locals can be affectionate and draws on camaraderie, there are more formal occasions which call for the use of proper English especially when Singapore would soon play host for the inaugural Youth Olympics.

Language - Efficiency or Emotional?

I came across this interesting article from My Paper about Singaporeans being multi-lingual instead of bi-lingual and her personal experiences with respect to speaking English and Mandarin. Her views struck a cord and I wanted to shout " Yes! Yes! This is how I feel" as I read each para.

Her first statement of how Singaporeans should consider themselves multi-lingual instead of bilingual already caught my attention. By her definition, bilinguists referred to individuals who could effectively speak 2 languages at all times and who could translate between the 2 languages. Most Singaporeans often were not competent in the latter. Hence, we should consider ourselves multilinguist instead. Indeed, if you asked me to translate balance sheet, income statement, cost of capital to Chinese, I would probably need the help of the English-Chinese dictionary.

She further commented that we spoke English more for efficiency but fell back on Mandarin due to the emotional ties. To write an email or to send an SMS, English was the primary choice. However, we often watched Chinese TV programs and listened to Chinese pop.

Indeed, although I did not speak impeccable English, I would still use English for professional reasons. Yet, sometimes to establish a sense (I hoped it was not a false sense) of camaraderie, I would engage my colleagues in Mandarin or even Hokkien. It was as if we were immediately on the same side, in the same boat and fought the same battle when we discussed our problems in Chinese. Carrying out an entire conversation in English sounded too distant and often reserved for talking to external parties or management.

What about you? Do you engage in a 'rojak' languages at work, with friends and at home? Perhaps, such rojak use of langauges have already become a signature of Singapore culture.

English

My colleague - Ping and I had just attended an English course. Attending course was always relaxing as we could learn something new, skip office and go home on time. The past 2 days were good breaks from the hectic work schedule. Play aside, the course was also a good wake-up call for some of our deeply rooted wrong speaking and writing habits.

It was also shocking to discover that what we have been taught in school was wrong. Our trainer had previously sat in for some of the classes conducted in schools. From his observation, many teachers had inculcated the wrong rules, especially grammatical rules to the students. The biggest language problem for Singaporeans was grammar, but the focus in school was often vocabulary. How true. We spent time on learning spelling and newer and longer words. The time spent on grammar was mainly restricted to making sentences.

Moreover, during those times, some rules taught by the teachers were wrong. For instance, did your teacher tell you that "to" must be followed by a present tense? Did your teacher also tell you that the use of tenses were determined by time? If yes, these rules were wrong. Did your teacher tell you what were transitive and intransitive verbs, phrasal verbs, gerunds or infinitives? At least, I never recall learning these.

Firstly, whether "to" should be followed by present tense would be determined by whether the "to" was use in context with an infinitive or as part of the phrasal verb (ie as a preposition). Wait a second, what were infinitives, phrasal verbs or prepositions? "To do", "to read", "to sleep" and "to eat" were infinitives. "Look forward to" and "committed to" were phrasal verbs. "To", "on", "in" and "for", etc were prepositions. Hence, "to" might not be followed by present tense as it could be used as both an infinitive and preposition. Thus, "I look forward to seeing you" but "I like to read". Frankly, I never knew about them until now. All the time, I was aware that "looking forward to seeing you" but it was picked up from my reading rather than knowing the reason behind it.

I was often confused about the use of tense, especially with reported speech. I recalled my teacher telling me that a verb in a reported speec had to be present tenses. For instance, "He said that I jog alot." My English trainer told her that the use of tense had nothing to do with time but with the words we used and the consistency of the tense in a sentence. In the previous example, it should have been "He said that I jogged alot" to be consistent with the tense of "said". Certain words like "last", "ago", "just" would be followed by past tense while "since", "recently" would be followed by present perfect tense. We should seldom use past perfect tenses unless they were associated with "previously".

At this point in time, I was hopelessly despaired. It was almost as if I was learning the language from the basic once more. Unfortunately, this time, it involved wiping out all the previous rules. This increased the difficulty as old habits died hard especially habits of more than 10 years. It was a slap onto my face on how bad my English was. This was not the end. It seemed that the way our writing was also in dire state.

The concept of "fog index" was introduced to us. It was basically a measure of the number of sentences and three-syllabic words in a sentence. The higher the fog index, the more difficult the reading of the writing would be and the less effective would be the communication. The trainer's message was strong and clear. No matter what our qualifications were, we should always write at an "O-level" graduate's level, fog index of 11. This meant that we should restrict to an average of 18 words in one sentence and avoid using difficult words if the meaning could be conveyed via simpler ones. Oops, how often was I guilty of peppering my writing with some bombastic words here and there in the failed attempt to elevate my writing skills.

When it came to speech, our Singlish was also disapproved by the trainer. It was not just in terms of the "lahs" and the "lohs" but also the use of too many acronyms, too many repetitions and wrong stress of a word (Colleague: it should be Col- league (Core-lick) instead of col-league (cur-lick)). He shared an anecdote of buying a coffee from a coffee shop when he first arrived in Singapore. He asked for a coffee and the assistant's reply was "can". Huh, coffee was sold in cans here? He repeated his order that he would like to have a cup of coffee. Again, the reply was "can". Actually, the assistant probably meant "Yes, we can serve you your coffee". Then, it was also wrong to say "red in colour", "big in size" as "in colour" and "in size" were repetitions.

I should really pay more attention to the way I speak and write from now on and also keep in mind the rules that were taught in this English class. Old habits die hard. Please feel free to point up to me if I ever lapse and make any of the mistakes mentioned above.

Colourful Languages

Living in a multicultural and multiracial means that life is never monotonous, especially in the culinary and lingua aspects.

We always display our languages dexterity through our daily expression (both spoken and written), with a predominant English statement peppered with a smattering of Malay and Dialect. Sometimes, we may also be speaking in our mother tongues but replaced certain vocabulary with their English counterparts, mainly because at the critical moment, the mother-tongue word simply eludes us.

Some of the more creative ones even included our own local expression which involves a combination of different languages. Common expressions include “Buay Tahan” (Buay = (Hokkien) cannot, no, not; Tahan = (Malay) tolerate, bear).

Brother is again one of the most ‘outstanding’, in terms of coming out with incredulous expressions. Some of his recent inventions nearly caused me choking on my laughter. Imagine if I had laughed out loud reading my emails, my colleagues would have thought I have gone insane from the workload, so I had to control my laughter. I am not certain if they are his inventions or if he has simply heard these expressions somewhere.

Buah Long Long
- In normal context, it refers to a tropical fruit.
- In Brother’s context, Buah Long Long refers to a behaviour, eg, That XX really knows how to act, don’t know how to do but always buah long long in front of bosses.

Zhoon Zhoon Jiak Bee Hoon
- In normal context, zhoon zhoon and jiak bee hoon are separately used. Zhoon zhoon (Hokkien) means accurate. Jiak Bee Hoon (Hokkien) means eating rice vermicelli.
- In Brother’s context, this refers to so accurate that it is unbelievable, eg, Your business case shows $ x. Mine also shows $ x. Zhoon Zhoon Jiak Bee Hoon!

His inventions can even rhyme in Hokkien! They may not be those which will make it to Collin’s or Oxford Dictionary, but they are simply harmlessly funny and colloquial.

With such expressive languages, who says Singaporeans are boring.

World of Acronyms

Our conversation is getting shorter and shorter these days. Why? We are replacing more words with acronyms, eg BTW = by the way, LOL - Laughing out loud, TY = Thank you, etc. It is becoming increasing difficult to keep up-to-date with the expanding dictionary of acronyms. *Sigh*

I was introduced to more aconyms by my boss recently. A colleague of mine walked into a meeting late and all the seats are taken up. Another colleague, on seeing this, went out of the room to pull in another chair. My boss commented that the first colleague was very TP. In case you are perplexed like how I reacted initially, TP is not Transfer Pricing as more commonly known in the industry. TP is short for "Toa Pai" (Big shot, VIP).

Then when we went on to talk about other things, he mentioned that if we did something wrongly, someone would KBKB. Then he went around asking if we knew what was KBKB. I shook my head. He then explained that KBKB stood for cry father cry mother (in Hokkien, please translate for yourself).

My friend was even more creative. She even came out with an acronym that carries the same meaning in more than one language. Wonder of all wonders! She was complaining that her ex-boss was LL. LL is not something crude, but something cute. LL stands for lazy and lousy in English, Chinese and dialect - (1) lazy and lousy; (2) lan3 and lan4; and (3) lao yah and lao pok. Fascinating, isn't it?

Guess we should really try to get used to the world of acronyms if you have not. Imagine...

"That XXX is really LL. She is always very TP and comes for meeting late. Then when things go wrong, she will KBKB. OMG."

Excuse me, can you pass me the latest version of the acronyms dictionary please?