a real entry, for once.
written: 6:08 p.m. on Friday, Jun. 04, 2004

Bad English can be divided into three categories: Blatantly Bad English, Ridiculously Bad English, and Plain Bad English.

Blatantly Bad English can be illustrated as thus:

u noe hor, dat ger ah, bedi pretti eh!

People like that will tend to write this in their English essays:

Da United States of Amelika shld not go to war wif Iraq becuz war iz bad, now n foreva.

People like that will tend to speak like this:

"Wah! Really ah? That guy very cute leh! Yah lor, I think you should go out with him lor!"

That, my friend, is Blatantly Bad English.

Moving on to the second category of the Exciting Realm of Bad English, Ridiculously Bad English. For example:

todae... i... went... to... skool... and... had... lunch... wif... mi... frens... and... sch... was... veri... boringz... lehz...

I won't be surprised to find this in their English essays:

The United States of America... should not go to war with Iraq... because war is bad... now and forever...

They tend to speak like this:

"Hmm... is it...? Oh okay... yeah... he's cute... why not..."

And for the icing on the ice-cream cake, the cherry on top, the orgasm: Plain Bad English!

"Although the USA seem to had a justyfyable cause for going war with Iraq, but war is bad, war destroy life, war break homes, I dun support the war in Iraq because it is war, war is bad, violence bigit violence..."

"The protaginist in 1984 is Winston Smith, he don't have freedom anymore because of Big Brother, Big Brother take away the freedom of all its citizen, but Winston seems to still be able to think, for example in line 15, Winston thought..."

A few tips:

1. If you can't spell the word, don't use it. If you don't know what it means, forget it. Even better: If you know what it means but don't know how to use it, ditch the word completely. People are not impressed by big words; people are impressed by the manner in which big words are used. But the prerequisite is always this: YOU. HAVE. TO. SPELL. IT. CORRECTLY.

2. If you know your English is bad, don't take Literature. I am sick and tired of sitting through grammar classes in A Level Literature lessons. Advanced Level? Yeah, my bloody hindfoot. What a joke.

3. Unless you're a professional and established writer and know what you're doing, do not use the comma to join sentences. It's irritating. Use the full stop. Use conjunctions. Or stop going to JC altogether. Why bother when you're gonna fail GP anyway?

4. If you're over the age of 15, you no longer have a justifiable excuse to mizspel wurdz on purpuz. No, it is not cute; no, it is not trendy; and no, I am not impressed. I understand the need to 'save space' when sending SMSes, but is there a need to do likewise when you're typing a blog entry? I wasn't aware that diaryland or blogspot or what have you had character limits. Whatever the reason is, it's crap. You have no excuse for massacring the English language, you hear me?

5. And now... the ellipsis. The oh-so-popular dots. And the oh-so-frequently-misused-and-abused form of punctuation. Now, this pisses me off majorly, because I like the three dots. It's an amazing device writers use to convey, for example, uncertainty, or a lingering, poignant emotion. It is not, however, meant to be used a hundred times in a single sentence, a la my first illustration for 'ridiculously bad English'. I don't even know what to say about this without sounding like a crazy grammar fascist, but bottom line is, if you find yourself pressing the fullstop key on your keyboard more than five times while typing one sentence, you are ridiculously misusing it. I don't know why people see the need to do stupid things like, "Okay... see you today... at 12... yeah... at the... bus stop..." Especially in SMSes, especially if they do the contraction shit as well. Aren't you taking up a lot more space by doing that? Worse still, people invent punctuations. Since when did the two dots exist in grammar? "Yeah.. ok.. see ya.. bye.." What the blazing fuck?

It's truly amazing how a standard education system can produce such differing results. I don't care if I'm offending people here. And don't give me the invalid excuse of not growing up in an English-speaking environment. For crying out loud, I didn't grow up in an English-speaking family either. I didn't learn English properly until I was seven. SEVEN!

Honestly, if you ask me, it all boils down to two things: Ability and attitude. Half of Singapore's population don't have the ability, and that's okay. What pisses me off is their attitude. My school is great testament to the 'who gives a fuck' mentality. You hear people going around speaking butchered versions of English and Chinese, and they don't even seem to be ashamed.

Should they be ashamed? Of bleeding course! Hello, language is the most important thing in a person's life! How can you claim to be educated if you haven't the means by which you can go about showing it? Am I supposed to believe that a person got his degree from Harvard University if he tells me, "Eh, I got degree from Harvard leh!"? Bloody hell, No!

Yes, my English is nowhere near perfection, but I can safely say that I have better grasp of it than 80% of most people. At least I don't make stupid, obvious grammatical mistakes. Seriously, some people in my school are still writing things like, "In the past, people live a happier life than the present."

Oh god. Save me from this torturous, unbearable, grammatically-incorrect hell. When are people going to truly learn?

*****

Today, I am also going to talk about the opposite sex and my seeming inability to invest emotions in a relationship.

I suppose I suffer from what one may call the Snob Complex. I seem to think I deserve the best, and only the best. Two relationships have ended (by me), and the fault doesn't lie with me. It's always the guy who has the problem.

The guy is too short, too perverted, not intellectually on par with yours truly, not mature enough, too bloody childish, not English enough, not Chinese enough, too foreigner, too poor, not educated enough, blah blah bliddy blah.

Yes, the perennial problem of Whose Fault Is It Anyway isn't really that perennial after all. It's not my fault. Am I to be blamed for only wanting what I think I deserve?

Honestly, am I?

On the other hand, who really cares?

*****

My inspired entry came about when I was in the toilet, taking a shower. I swear, my most inspiring inspirations strike when I'm in the toilet. The famous Thinker should've been sculpted sitting on a toilet bowl.

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010