KoSong: As long as we can get by, what's a few mistakes here and there

How should we judge a government?

In Malaysia, if you don't watch television or read newspapers, you are uninformed; but if you do, you are misinformed!

"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." - Malcolm X

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience - Mark Twain

Why we should be against censorship in a court of law: Publicity is the very soul of justice … it keeps the judge himself, while trying, under trial. - Jeremy Bentham

"Our government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no

responsibility at the other. " - Ronald Reagan

Sunday, January 18, 2015

As long as we can get by, what's a few mistakes here and there

How would you translate 'food court' into Bahasa Malaysia? There was a pic of a banner in FB, 'Mahkamah makanan' which elicited a number of 'lol' (laugh out loud) in comments.

Then, there was a mistake in The Malaysian Insider which was obviously due to poor proof reading: it was a suggestion by DAP's Chong Chieng Jan for Sarawak ministers...
'Chong said only a transparent system would be able to stem corruption and cronyism. Citing the Penang administration under Lim Guan Eng, he said if Adenan meant business, he should follow Lim’s footsteps and make it a must for ministers and assistant ministers to declare their asses to the public. – January 16, 2015. - See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/sarawak-ministers-integrity-pledge-mere-window-dressing-says-dap#sthash.LPblSGI0.dpuf

The Education Ministry will be introducing a new rule which requires SPM candidates to pass English (besides Bahasa Malaysia) before they can have a full certificate. Already the cynics have pointed out that it will not help the standard of English because to maintain a decent number of passes, they expect the passing mark to be lowered if and when necessary!

We have come across, often enough, of ministers who insisted that their statements had been 'misquoted', 'quoted out of context', or 'outright lies', when their statements turned out to be a 'faux pas' or actually a Freudian slip of the tonque.

I used to listen to song lyrics and when not careful, often mistaken them for years without realising... some could be mistakenly hilarious:

Limestone cowboy; take my breasts away; take a sad song and make it badder; give piss a chance; oh Carol,I'm bloody fool; I'm stuck with the man in the middle;

In one of the videos for kids in Youtube, a mistake in Doremi (Sound of Music) goes: 'Lay, a drop of golden sun'. That it had not been corrected for so long meant either the producer is unaware of it or he or she did not bother to correct such a big mistake in English spelling which is likely to be picked up by those who viewed the video.

Of course, we can joke about others with poorer command of English. But we must also bear in mind, we can look stupid when trying out languages which we have poor command of. Eg. I am illiterate in Chinese and I am now learning to pick up conversational Mandarin and recognition of some Chinese characters. I will appear hopeless in the company of those Chinese educated. Then my formal education in BM was only up to Form 5, way back in 1967. Often I made mistakes in spelling. Eg. 'pandan muka' instead of 'padan muka' and 'ajar ajar ayam' instead of 'ajak ajak ayam'. Malay words like 'kini' and 'justera' were new to me, and years ago, I could not get over my Malay colleague's translation of 'buat masa ini' to mean 'in the meantime' even though it was correct!
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