English as it should be writ (Part 4)

The headline Civil service to get half-month payment in July (28th May 2011) refers.

This headline was accompanied by what looked like senior civil servants smiling, which mystified me.

Why would these civil servants be smiling when they are only going to get a half-month pay instead of the full month?

Reading further I realized that the headline writer meant these civil servants were going to get a half-month "bonus".

A "payment" is just reward (or punishment).

A "bonus" (Latin root "bon" = good) is an additional payment usually due to good performance.

As a taxpayer you might well ask what have these civil servants done to deserve a bonus, almost immediately after a general election. (Answer: it was not the peformance of the civil servants that was deemed good, but that of the economy.)

When so many aspects of our daily life are going wrong, eg:

• dead body in water tank (not properly regulated by government department?)
• flooding (we can't stop the rain, but at least the relevant departments could ensure safety)
• boy lost to flood (when safety barriers were not put in place)
• overcrowding in buses and other public transport (not getting the estimates right)
• schools not producing the type of graduands required by employers (poor forecasting and understanding of economic and industry needs)
• foreign maid left with brain damage because of some illogical government policy, etc.,

is it legitimate to ask why these civil servants should be getting a bonus at all?

I have friends in the civil service who are doing a great job, I'm sure, so forgive me for even thinking this: maybe a real dose of "half-month payment", especially for those at the top, could be the spur that we taxpayers should put in the you-know-where of the ministers and those who should be leading the charge in making the life of Singaporeans (and their guests) that little better.

Those who agree, please put your hand up kee chiew.

English as it should be writ (Part 3)

In the GE2011 period and its aftermath I cannot help but notice that Singaporeans tend to:

(1) use the word "stay" when they mean "live", and

(2) use the word "house" when they mean "flat".

I have not done any research or looked up any dictionaries, so feel free to fire arrows.

Typically "stay" suggests a temporary stopover.

So if you run into friends while on holiday they might enquire, "Where are you staying?" Your answer might be "such-n-such hotel", or "I'm staying with my friends", etc.

The location at which you spend most of your life outside work and school is where you "live".

If you say, "O! Fred? He lives at the casino now," we would conclude that Fred is in serious trouble.

In the UK I live in Greater London. In Singapore I am a person of "no fixed address" or "no fixed abode", so my family and I usually stay at the YMCA. ("Homeless in Singapore", that will be another post.)

My mum-in-law? She does not live with us. She lives a four-hour drive away.

Of course when you say that you "live with" someone, it often suggests that you are in a special relationship with that person.

Thus on bio-blurbs you might read that "so-and-so lives in such-and-such with her partner, two step-children, a parrot and two cats".

If the person you live with is not your "partner" as such, you'd probably describe this person as your "flatmate*", "landlord" or something else. *The Americans tend to use "room-mate".

In Singapore we often use the words "house" and "home" interchangeably. This is probably because in the Chinese and Malay languages "jia" and "rumah" mean both house and home.

In the UK I find that English speakers are often more particular. A house refers to a two-storey property. It could be a stand-alone and therefore "detached" house, or a "semi-detached" property (two houses sharing a common wall).

Houses in a row that share common walls on both sides form a "terrace". The end houses in the row with only one common wall is "end-of-terrace" and therefore more expensive, though it is still not as prestigious as a semi-detached.

Single-storey detached houses are called bungalows. If a second (half) floor is added to it where the attic used to be, it is a "chalet bungalow". Etc. etc.

So the Brits are miffed when Singaporeans say "Come to my house for a visit" and find that the "house" is actually a flat.

Yet, let me add, there is nothing shameful about the flats we have in Singapore. Most of our flats in Singapore are larger than the flats you'd find in the UK.

The flat I lived in for nearly five years would be claustrophobic by Singaporean standards. The upside is there is a little garden.

In summary, most Singaporeans do not stay in houses. We live in flats. Nice flats.

English as it should be writ (Part 2)

The headline President Nathan forfeits public service awards to Ming Yi, Durai (27th May, 2011) refers.

27/5/2011 I sent this email to 'newseditor@channelnewsasia.com'

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Dear Editor

It was a "facepalm" moment when I read this headline.

It is appalling English.

How could President Nathan "forfeit" a public service award that was not his?

A person can only forfeit something he owns or is due to him but which now needs to be given up as a punishment or penalty.

You could say "President to strip Ming Yi and Durai of public service awards" (except that "President to strip" is not a very good headline).

Or "President to remove/recall Ming Yi and Durai's public service awards".

Or "Ming Yi and Durai to forfeit public service awards".

Or "Ming Yi and Durai to be stripped of public service awards".

Or "Ming Yi and Durai to lose public service awards".

Or several other ways to convey that story.

But the President can only "forfeit" what is his to lose: freedom, free time, salary, title, anonymity, etc.

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Notchet got reply from Channelnewsasia, but I noticed that the next time someone wrote about this in Todayonline the headline was: Durai, Ming Yi stripped of public service awards.

Are Channelnewsasia and Todayonline part of the same company?

English as it should be writ (Part 1)

The headline Clementi's first full-fledged mall officially opens (22nd May, 2011) refers.

22/05/2011 I sent this email to Straits Times  Forum as well as the contact email on their website:
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Dear Sir/Madam

My husband and I looked in puzzlement at this headline.

What animal is this Clementi mall that it is now full/fully-fledged?

In what way has this Clementi mall lost its fledgling status to gain maturity (hence fully-fledged)?

If your writer/subhead writer* means "complete" as in fully-built does that imply that previous malls, in Clementi perhaps, have never been fully-built?

I used to learn my English by reading Straits Times a lot. I am glad that my son does not have to do the same.

Please take note.

* My mistake here. I meant headline writer, or sub-editor. 

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Didn't expect a reply, but it came on 26/5/2011:

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Dear Dr Lee,

Thank you for taking the trouble to point out the wording of our headline.

"Full-fledged" in this instance refers to the "full status" (New Oxford Dictionary of English) of the mall as one that comes complete with major anchor tenants (a big supermarket, department store, public library, etc) and a wide variety of other shops, including specialty stores, restaurants and a foodcourt, among other tenants.

This is as opposed to smaller malls which do not have major anchor tenants or a wide range of shops/services.

And it is the first such mall in the Clementi area, a point the headline writer saw fit to point out.

Apologies for the slow reply; our usual person who deals with external emails is away.

I hope you and your family will continue to read The Straits Times.


Lim Chuan Huat
Associate Night Editor

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I mulled over this, but was still dissatisfied with the answer and responded.

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Dear Mr Lim

Thank you for your reply.

I am still not convinced that the phrase "full-fledged" has been used in its correct context.

How does one define when a shopping mall [has**] acquired "full status"?

You might argue that it has anchor tenants and such. I could argue that it lacks a fitness gym and a swimming pool, for example. A very important feature of new shopping malls is that it has a creche for shoppers so that little children could be taken care of while parents/carers shop. Does Clementi Mall have one of these? Also it should have a "motobility" shop, hiring out motorised scooters for elderly people who cannot walk the distance.

I hope you begin to see how illogical it is that one would describe a mall as "full-fledged". Someone else might argue that it lacks a place of worship, a place of meditation (for stressed out shoppers or husbands of shoppers), a funeral services shop (convenient for those who like to shop till they drop?), a maid service agency, etc.

There is no agreed definition of when a mall is "complete" or of "full status" in your usage. Whereas in describing an animal that has fully matured, all the biological indicators are there (or not). In describing whether a professional person is fully-qualified, all the requirements are legislated (eg a medical student who has not completed x period of internship, certified by professional body, etc. cannot call himself/herself a "doctor").

If you could describe a shopping mall as "full-fledged", you would next describe a car as "full-fledged" (because it comes with satnav, remote controlled seats, etc).

You get the picture ....

Yours truly

Dr Lee (full-fledged busybody)

**Omitted inadvertently in my email.
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I'm still waiting for Mr Lim to reply.

Time and Place for Everything

This is one of my many letters to the Straits Times that have not been published:

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What do the news on sloppily dressed students, Singapore employers struggling to fill vacancies, and the Indian tycoon Ratan Tata complaining about the “work ethic” of British workers have in common?

Despite putting people through an extensive, and some say intensive, education system, employers in Singapore and the UK still do not get the type of employees they require.

Ergo, our education systems have failed.

This clearly contradicts the increase in the number of students gaining a greater number of O and A levels. Some young person questioned how Chen Show Mao could be a top student with only 4 A Levels.

I am of the opinion that a “marketplace” of exam boards in UK has led to a “dumbing down”. Where previously only the top 5% (say) of a cohort are awarded an “A” grade, now everyone who scored over 70% (say) is given an “A”.

Therefore, many more people get A grades. But does gaining multiple A grades mean they have actually mastered the art of learning and the skills of thinking?

I have met several ostensibly “high-achieving” young people who cannot string two grammatical sentences together in a conversation on any topic of significance.

“Yes”, “No”, shrug of shoulder, shake of head. How are these going to convince anyone to buy a product, a service, or an idea?

I had no qualms in ticking off my NUS students if they came to tutorials ill-prepared or dressed inappropriately.

Educationists speak of a “hidden curriculum”: being – and submitting work – on time, wearing the uniform correctly, participating in discussions, walking and speaking in a manner befitting a student, etc. (“Hooligan or gentleman?” is enough to make my son sit properly.)

Knowing how to dress (and behave) for the occasion is a life skill. Would you wear revealing clothes when being introduced to your prospective mother-in-law or a scholarship interview?

Heard of Victoria Beckham? She annoyed me by refusing to smile at the recent royal wedding. She behaved as if she were royalty, attending a funeral.

Time and place for everything, my dear.

Who's the highest paid person in this chain?

I am often a bit slow off the mark when it comes to commenting on Singapore news, despite the instant nature of electronic communications these days. My excuse is I do have a life to live, a home to look after, a business to run.

Concerning Dr Lim Wee Kiak's comment about high minsterial salaries, he was supposed to have said, but later apologised for these inappropriate comment, “If the annual salary of the Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts is only $500,000, it may pose some problems when he discusses policies with media CEOs who earn millions of dollars, because they need not listen to the minister’s ideas and proposals. Hence, a more reasonable payout would help to maintain some dignity.”

My immediate response to this was this man has never lived in the real world.

At eighteen, when my classmates went to National Service and/or university, or repeated their A Levels (which were really tough), I decided that I had enough of school and went out to work.

I went into advertising as a trainee copywriter. Prior to this I had asked and was given a column to write in a teenage magazine. The editor said, "Yeah, I think you can write," and gave me a job that did not exist before. She even assigned me a senior writer to train me, in between my long hours at a junior college.

When I saw an advertisement for a copywriter after my A Levels, I thought, uhm, I don't think I they would give me this job, but who knows? They could only turn me down.

Though I was not the type of person they needed, the creative director managed to create a trainee post for me, because he saw that I had the potential. He even managed to find an extra desk and an old typewriter for me, rather upsetting the chemistry between members of an existing creative team.

What I learned here was wages were in inverse proportion to "power".

The advertising executive in a client company called the shots on the type of advertising campaign his/her company required. He/She signs off the contract, and if the agency does not comply with what was agreed, the client could refuse to pay.

The account executive from my advertising agency probably got paid a lot more than the client advertising executive, but he/she quietly took instructions from the client, and produced the brief for the creative department.

The creative director who was paid more than the Account Executive (AE), no doubt, then gave the job to one of the creative teams. The art director and copywriter took instructions from the AE and planned the campaign. The creatives are known to make a lot more money than the AE. Or at least they behave as if they did!

Then if the campaign required models and photographers, the creative team sourced for these. The photographer and model took instructions from the art director. The copywriter took care of the "copy" (ie words). I got to talk to the model agency and "ordered" the type of models we needed and helped to audition them.

Again both the photographer and model probably made more money than the art director (at least on their hourly rates). The top models I worked with (sometimes I helped to style photo shoots) were paid about half my monthly wages for an hour of work!

Sometimes if the art director/photographer would let me, I would make suggestions about the photo shoot (especially if I knew that it would be more in sync with the copy (ie advertising text) I planned to write. Even top models had to take instructions from me. Sort of.

So you see, the person/s at the lowest order of the command chain (the model) actually made the most money, while the advertising executive who thinks he called the shots actually, possibly, probably, made the least (bar the trainee copywriter).

What has Dr Lim got to say to that?

It was the same when I was the editor of the magazine for an international non-profit organization. I had to commission articles from the people who were the "who's who", the "aristocracy", of the business I was in.

Poor me, earning peanuts and therefore living on peanut butter sandwiches in my north-west London town, had to tell these people what I required of their articles and the deadline by which I needed them.

And then I had the audacity to edit their theses into 800 words for a target audience made up mostly of readers who do not have English as a first language.

Yet I always got my writers to agree to write, and my articles always arrived on time, and no one has yet to complain that I have not done justice to their original articles.

So Dr Lim, clearly it is not a question of how much I earned, what brand peanut butter I used, or how important these people are in their spheres of influence.

It comes down to the skill with which I (or anyone else) could persuade other individuals -- who do not owe me a living -- to do something for me despite not gaining any financial advantage.

Does this surprise Dr Lim?

If it does, I can only conclude that Dr Lim has lived in a very cloistered world.

Going by his reasoning, no one would engage in any unpaid voluntary work.

Sir, Man shall not -- must not -- live by bread alone.

Why do we (still) need MPs to write letters?

Of course due to reasons of confidentiality MPs cannot tell us the particular woes of their constituents who come to their MP surgeries (as they are called in the UK). (This is one reason void deck surgeries are not ideal.)

From information gathered in the news, blog post comments and other personal communication, it appears that a sizeable number of queries are to request MPs to write letters to government departments.

In the following link someone wants help with an application to hold a religious event: Aljunied MPs hold first Meet-the-People sessions

Why, I ask myself, does an MP need to be involved in this? It should be a purely bureaucratic decision: The rules are these. If your plan does not fall within these rules, you cannot apply.

Or is the woman in question appealing a decision by whatever government department involved? (1) Is it a standard practice that these decisions are passed back to the MP? (2) Is the MP therefore to act as judge and jury to decide what is appropriate and what is inappropriate?

If the answer to (1) is yes, then something is very wrong with the civil service/bureaucracy. Clearly the system is not efficient enough. There are too many grey areas and a comprehensive review of processes and protocols is required.

If the answer is yes to (2), then we are are saying that MPs have the right to dispense patronage. If they feel that they like a constituent for some reason, they can approve ("endorse" was the term I've seen being used) an appeal/application. If, for some reason, the MP does not approve, the contituent has no one else to turn to.

What if the MP writes the letter, but the government department still refuses the appeal? Does this mean that the MP would "lose face"? What is the percentage of MPs' intervention refused by government departments, I wonder. Is there a difference between PAP and opposition MPs' appeals?

If MPs are now writing more letters, according to a Straits Times report (which link I cannot locate as I write), is this because civil servants are not really as efficient as they should be? Then why are they given the bonus we read about here:

Civil service to get half-month payment in July (actually this headline gave me the impression that their regular wages have been docked for poor performance, such is the headline writing skills at Straits Times)

In Singapore where we had a lot of illteracy, constituents had to turn to MPs in the past to write letter. Now after 40 years of good education (so the government claims, but that will be the subject of another post), why are we still having to rely on MPs to write letters?

A response to my previous post tells me:

When the MP writes the letter, the government department considers your appeal differently. If it's a favourable result, the constituent will be indebted to the MP (and hence more likely to vote for him/her). That's the whole point of the system.. unfortunately.

I remember I had to go to my MP to write a letter to HDB for a grant to fix a toilet ceiling leak! Waited for 2 hours to not even see the MP, but some grassroots person, and my letter got lost somehow. Crazy.. HDB could have just given the grant directly without me queueing etc, but they said it's the policy to get the MP to write a letter.. ??

Similarly someone told me that when after all her efforts to write to the relevant department have failed, a letter from her MP did the trick, and so she is now eternally grateful to him.

This suggests to me that our civil service departments and/or statutory boards have designed "built-in inefficiencies" into their protocols so that MPs are seen to be effective. Such an inbuilt pattern of patronage is not befitting a first world parliament.

We pay our MPs quite a lot of money. We should not use them as a secretariat.

I would rather MPs hold more "tea parties" or "focus groups" so that the issues facing constituents can be dealt with BEFORE there is a need to get an MP to write to government department x,y or z.